Maple Leafs will preach patience with their NHL draft picks

When it comes to the 2015 NHL entry draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs are saying all the right things concerning their fourth-overall pick. They’re preaching patience with their prospects.

It’s a refreshing change from an organization that hasn’t much success developing high-end talent.

“We’re going to look to be patient,” said Mark Hunter, the Leafs director of player personnel and interim co-GM. “We want to protect our asset that’s fourth overall. We want to develop them and make sure they’re getting better without stumbling around where it’s unnecessary.”

At the recent NHL draft combine, Toronto’s brain trust was on hand to scope out the prospects for themselves and interview their potential picks. Among the players in the mix for the fourth pick include Boston College defenceman Noah Hanifin, Erie Otters centre Dylan Strome and London Knights winger Mitchell Marner.

The Leafs’ decision on who to select will, of course, be impacted greatly by the Arizona Coyotes, who pick ahead of them at No. 3. At present Hanifin is ranked third – behind forwards Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel – by the NHL’s Central Scouting Service. Strome is ranked fourth and Marner sixth with Kingston forward Lawson Crouse sandwiched in between. According to a handful of NHL scouts however, they’re not sold on the 6-foot-4, 215-pound Crouse as a top-five pick as compared to the aforementioned players.

Marner is the player the Leafs are most familiar with since the 18-year-old was drafted by Hunter back when he was working as the general manager with the OHL’s Knights. Mark Hunter’s brother Dale was also the coach in London, so the Hunters have been keeping a close watch on Marner’s development.

“Mark and Dale put a lot of trust in me in my first year,” said Marner. “This year they put even more (trust) in me.

“I learned a lot in my first year and I think that’s why I excelled this year.”

Marner finished second in OHL scoring behind Strome, with 44 goals and 82 assists in 63 games. Listed at 5-foot-11 and a 160-pounds, the native of Markham, Ont., has already grown quite a bit from when he first joined the OHL.

“He was 5-foot-7 when he was in minor midget,” said Hunter of Marner. “So he’s come a long way. … There’s growth there, but he’s still got to get physically stronger – that’s even the case with some of these other boys like Dylan Strome. He’s got to get stronger, but he’s got the height right now at 6-3, so it’s interesting.”

Regardless of who the Leafs select with their first pick, there will be no guarantee fans will be seeing him skate at the Air Canada Centre any time soon. Hunter said the team is in no rush to throw players into the NHL game if they’re not ready – especially physically – where the taxing 82-game regular-season schedule can take its toll.

“I’m sure some of them are ready to play skill-wise,” said Hunter of making the jump to the NHL. “Physically it always worries me. I’ve seen kids come into the National Hockey League – just my experience of watching junior – watching them going up (to the NHL) and the (Gilbert) Brules, who end up getting hurt. That’s, to me, a bigger concern.”

The Leafs also have the 24th pick in the draft which they’re open to trading if the right offer came along.

“It’s harder to predict,” said Hunter of a late first-round pick. “You could want to trade up or you could want to trade down, so there’s a lot of different things that could happen.”

At that point in the draft, there should still be high-end talent available, though the field should still be wide open as to who it’ll be since after the top two picks, the draft is expected to be a crap shoot.

“What happens here is that a lot of teams are going to get a player at their pick that they had a lot higher on their list,” said Dan Marr, director of Central Scouting.

“There’s not that much separation between the players, so one team may have the player 10th and the other team may have him at 20 so I think everybody on the first day of the draft is going to be quite pleased with what they get.”