Also in the list are former leafs Nick Ritchie (10), Kasperi Kapanen (22), and Josh Ho-Sang (28)
8th Overall Pick: William Nylander (TOR)
Projection: A top line playmaking winger with dazzling skills and confidence handling and distributing the puck. Quick and crafty, sees the ice very well, and can shoot very well. Undersized, flawed defensively, and can get carried away trying to do too much himself. Compared to Patrick Kane by TSN and Jeff Skinner by THW.
Outcome: Selecting an undersized pure skill Swedish winger was not an uncontroversial way for the Leafs to start off their much-delayed rebuild, but it turned out to be clearly the right decision. Though some Toronto fans used the supposedly soft and selfish Nylander as the avatar for everything they thought was wrong with the team in the late 2010s, the way Willy hit his potential in the 2020s has silenced the critics; since 2021 he’s scored at a 40-goal, 90-point pace and been the team’s most consistent postseason producer. Not only did he maximize all the skills he was celebrated for as a prospect, he also added a lot of strength which has allowed him to further extend his puck possession skill and open up the dirty areas of the ice for net-drives. The defence never really improved, but it’s hard to care too much about that given his offensive weapons.
