Less than a month ago, Fraser Minten cracking the Toronto Maple Leafs roster to start the season wasn’t an outcome many would’ve considered — let alone predicted.
The 19-year-old was thought of as a solid prospect, but he hadn’t seen any AHL action yet, and he didn’t light the WHL on fire in 2022-23 with 67 points in 57 games. There’s more to Minten’s game than raw offensive production, but you don’t often see a forward who just ranked 47th on the WHL points leaderboard making an opening night NHL roster.
A strong preseason forced the Maple Leafs’ hand to the point that they not only rostered the rookie, but temporarily abandoned the idea of putting William Nylander at centre so they could keep Minten in the middle to begin his NHL career.
It’s well within the realm of possibility that Minten’s rapid ascension doesn’t have a profound effect on the 2023-24 Toronto Maple Leafs. He could easily look out of his depth early and the chances of the team returning him to the Kamloops Blazers before he plays 10 games and burns a year of his entry-level contract are significant.
Even if the Minten experiment only lasts a few weeks, the fact it’s happening at all is unusual and reflects well on the young centre.
Since the beginning of the salary-cap era began in 2005-06 there have been 155 instances of a skater Minten’s age or younger — meaning younger than 20, and not turning 20 until the beginning of the next league year — appearing in the NHL.
That’s a pretty significant cohort of players, but 91% of those cases have been first-round picks. NHL teams don’t mind giving roles to teenagers, but the vast majority of the time those guys are players with impressive draft pedigrees.
Below are the 14 times someone in Minten’s age profile played in the NHL despite being selected outside the first round — like the rookie centre, who went 38th overall in 2022. Alex Formenton accounts for two of those player seasons as he appeared as an 18-year-old and again when he was 19.
That’s a bit of a mixed bag as there are plenty of players the Maple Leafs would be happy if Minten became — and a few that would represent a disappointing outcome. The clearest pattern here is that most of these outliers didn’t make much of an instant impact, or even play a quarter of the season.
Of the three players that played 70 or more games, Bratt is probably the most comparable to Minten as he was a training camp dark horse who surprised the New Jersey Devils. O’Reilly is also a little bit similar to the Maple Leafs rookie in that he made an NHL roster at a young age despite not dominating at the CHL level in the previous season (66 points in 68 games). Aho can be thrown out because he came into 2016-17 hot off a point-per-game season in Finland playing against professionals.
The Maple Leafs have shown an unusual amount of faith in Minten considering his draft position and track record, and it will be interesting to see to what degree that confidence is rewarded.
Based on recent history it doesn’t seem wise to project the 19-year-old will hit the ground running, no matter how solid he looked in the preseason.
Minten’s presence on the Maple Leafs roster doesn’t prove he’s a star in the making, or tell us anything definitive about his long-term future, but it seems like a positive sign for a Toronto squad that has struggled to develop forward talent in recent years.
It’s possible that Minten is back in Kamloops before long — but if he can manage even two NHL points, he’ll be one of six players drafted outside the first round in his age group to do that in almost 20 years. It’s already clear that we’re looking at an unusual situation, and in the next few weeks, we’ll learn if the young forward is more of an oddity or a breakthrough contributor.
