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The Toronto Maple Leafs organization has drafted and developed a number of youngsters currently playing in the NHL (Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander), but the club under former GM Kyle Dubas replenished their prospect pool to provide the Leafs with young prospects. It will now be up to new GM Brad Treliving to continue that work.
As we did last year, we will rank the club’s top prospects over the upcoming weeks based on their progress in either the NCAA, CHL, Europe, ECHL or AHL and their potential to make the Leafs roster and make a contribution in the future.
Players are eligible for the list if they have not played more than 40 NHL games and are 25 years old or younger:
#40 - Rodion Amirov – LW (Ufa Salavat – KHL, Did Not Play)
#39 Ryan Chyzowski - LW (Newfoundland - ECHL, Toronto - AHL)
#38 Dryden McKay - G (Newfoundland - ECHL, Toronto - AHL)
#37 - Wyatt Schingoethe – C (Western Michigan – NCAA)
#36 Zach Solow - RW (Newfoundland - ECHL, Toronto - AHL)
#35 John Fusco – D (Dartmouth – NCAA)
34 Kalle Loponen – D (Koo Koo Kouvola/HPK – Finland SM-Liiga)
The Leafs traditionally go to Europe in the later rounds because of the longer development window and have had good luck in drafting the likes of Andreas Johnsson, Pierre Engvall, Carl Gunnarsson, and Pontus Holmberg. In his second draft, former Leafs GM Kyle Dubas and his scouting staff followed this model and selected Finnish defenseman Kalle Loponen in the seventh round (204th overall).
The 22-year-old is a product of the Karpat junior system and played internationally for Finland in the Under-18’s and 30 games in the second-level Mestis league in his draft year, but then opted in 2019 to head to North America to play regularly for the OHL Sudbury Wolves instead of fighting for playing time in the SM-Liiga.
Loponen has decent offensive tools and scored 24 points (6 goals, 18 assists) in 56 games with the Wolves, but with the OHL shut down in 2020, he returned to Finland to play regularly.
In the U20-SM-sarja, Loponen was named the league’s best blueliner after scoring 33 points (11 goals, 22 assists) in 36 games, but he then moved from Karpat to Kouvola KooKoo to play regularly in the top-level SM-Liiga. In 2021-22, the 5’11”. 187 lb. blueliner played 49 games with four clubs at three levels. Last season, he played 38 Liiga games and posted a career-high 11 points (2 goals, 9 assists), but was loaned out to two other clubs.
In 2023, Loponen signed on with the second-tier Vasteras IK in Sweden.
According to HockeyProspect.com, Loponen is “not afraid to engage physically along the boards in addition to having good timing with his hits, but “his skating and footwork are average…..not very fluid and doesn’t generate a lot of speed from his strides.”
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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