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Maple Leafs prospect Fraser Minten is not at the world juniors but his future looks bright

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Fraser Minten is staring out the window of a Sandman Hotel in Prince George, BC The Kamloops Blazers center and 2022 Maple Leafs second-round draft pick recently finished a six-hour bus trip through northern BC ahead of the Blazers’ final game before the WHL’s winter break. He surveys a scene in front of him, one that is about as far away from the glamorous lifestyle he could one day be a part of.

“There’s a car dealership across the road,” he deadpans, before seeing a Tim Hortons as well.

“Might go get a donut after dinner,” he adds, snickering slightly.

It’s not as if the 18-year-old is ungrateful for the life he’s currently leading. Far from it. It’s just that he knows how much work he has to do before one day being part of that aforementioned lifestyle.

“More ambition to keep working,” said Minten.

While many of the top junior prospects are spending late December and early January at the 2023 world juniors, Minten will return to his Vancouver home while also focusing on his own development on the ice.

This will be a rare world junior tournament as it will not feature a Leafs prospect. But that doesn’t mean Minten had a poor first half of the season.

Far from it, in fact.

After returning from a lengthy stay in Toronto over the summer and rehabbing a wrist injury, Minten has had as strong a start to the 2022-23 season as almost any other Leafs prospect. He’s looking more and more like a player who could eventually adapt to the professional game because of what he learned in Toronto this summer.

“He got a taste of it,” said Blazers assistant GM Tim O’Donovan of Minten’s time in Toronto, “and he’s hungry to get back there.”

O’Donovan had to stop himself and shake his head a few times early on this season: Was this the same Fraser Minten, O’Donovan asked himself, that left for the NHL Draft a few months earlier?

After being drafted by the Leafs as a smart and versatile center, Minten spent practically the entirety of the next few months either living in Toronto or being in the Leafs organization: development camp in July was followed by the Traverse City prospect tournament in September, with a long stint living and training in Toronto. Minten was then invited to Leafs training camp, although a wrist injury cut his time in camp short. Still, Minten stayed in Toronto, rehabbing his injury and making the most of his time, adding serious muscle to his already sneaky big frame.

He leaned in to his development during the injury by abandoning working with the puck and, with the help of Joe Underwood of the Leafs player development staff, focused on defense-to-offense transition movements and being able to incorporate more dynamic movements off the rush. .

The impact of Minten’s extended time in Toronto to his development as a player, and as a person, should not be underestimated.

“I felt really confident coming back, like I’d taken another step over the summer,” said Minten.

Minten came away from that time with a far better understanding of the demands placed on professional hockey players. Whether he was skating alongside Toronto-based players such as John Tavares and Michael Bunting in the late summer or watching other players from beside the rink or training off the ice, the word Minten keeps coming back to when discussing what he learned from this summer. Toronto was “committed.”

“I think about guys that have just won Stanley Cups and they come in and they’re fighting for spots,” said Minten. “Getting to see that was humbling and was something I needed to be aware of from a young age. And that could help my chances.”

Two weeks after his injury, Minten signed a three-year entry level contract and was, surprisingly to Minten at least, introduced among the rest of the Leafs ahead of the team’s home opener.

While the months away from home might have ended up being far more than Minten had originally anticipated, that time set him up for success this season.

“Getting to practice among pros was good because you don’t know what you don’t know,” said Minten. “I got a real taste of what that next level is. Getting to experience it first hand and being in the moment was something I’ve thought about and have tried to take away with me.”

When the 18-year-old returned to the ice for the Blazers a little over a week after the Leafs home opener, the newfound swagger was palpable. He logged three points in his season opener. That aforementioned added muscle was noticeable on and off the ice.

“At times last year he might be outmuscled in a puck battle,” O’Donovan said. “But this year, he’s been able to hold his own.”

The improvements in his game don’t stop there: he can hold onto the puck well and hold off defenders, allowing him to be more creative and dominant in the offensive zone. Last season, an area of ​​weakness was his ability in the face-off circle as he won just 45.6 percent of his draws. This season, his face-off percentage has vastly improved to 58.2 percent.

And that increased muscle and confidence has led to more power and accuracy in his shot as well.

Add it all up and you have a player whose game has been, according to O’Donovan, “elevated.”

But there’s still a catch: As much as Minten’s game has improved in a relatively short amount of time, there is an understanding from both Minten and the Blazers staff that even further improvements are necessary, and possible to attain this season.

His production has jumped from 0.82 points per game in his draft season to 1.27 points per game this season, first among all Blazers born in 2004. But 20 of his 28 points this season have come on the power play. The Blazers’ power play is tops in the WHL (30.4 percent) and Minten’s production is a serious contributing factor.

That’s all well and good, but no one, Minten included, wants the Leafs pick to become strictly a power play specialist.

“Early on, his 5-on-5 play has been just OK,” said O’Donovan, who points to Minten’s meagre plus-2 on a very good Blazers team as indicative of that assessment.

The Blazers staff see him hanging onto the puck a little too long and looking for plays that aren’t always there. There’s a concern from the Blazers that this approach makes it easier for defenders to close him off when he enters the offensive zone.

“He looks for things when the simple play is right there,” said O’Donovan. “He’s a very cerebral player. But there’s times he just holds onto the puck for too long.”

Minten adds that he believes he’s more effective when he has more space.

“At 5-on-5, I’m a little more passive at times, playing on the defensive side and ensuring that I’m playing a safe, responsible game and making sure there isn’t a lot coming the other way,” said Minten.

Over the Blazers’ last few games before the holiday break, O’Donovan saw Minten trending in the right direction by utilizing more give-and-go passing plays with his teammates. Nevertheless, a key directive from the Blazers staff and a focus for the remainder of Minten’s season will be getting him to move quicker with and without the puck.

Why? O’Donovan and the rest of the Blazers staff know that Minten is capable of a professional future and so much of his development has to be geared toward building an effective professional player.

“The puck moves faster than the player,” said O’Donovan. “(Playing faster) will help him at the pro level.”

Now, Minten will be the first to tell you that even though his time spent in Toronto made him believe he’s “not that far off from belonging,” he’s trying to be patient with his development. If he doesn’t crack the Leafs lineup next season, which would be a tall order regardless, he’ll have to complete another season in the WHL before moving to the Marlies.

Should his game continue to evolve as it has, Minten could be part of the Canadian team at the 2024 world juniors.

Come 2024, it should be reasonable to start assessing what kind of impact Minten might have in a Leafs lineup.

That’s in part because there’s a maturity in his mindset off the ice that could ease his transition to professional hockey.

“His highs aren’t too high and the lows aren’t too low,” said O’Donovan of Minten.

This season, the Blazers have noticed how his grounded attitude has had a positive impact on the team’s young players. He sets reasonable expectations for himself and his teammates. That could help the team come May when Kamloops will host the Memorial Cup. The Blazers will be automatic entrants and Minten will have an opportunity to test himself among some of the best junior hockey players in the country.

“I have good awareness of what’s going on with teammates and what’s going on on the ice. I want to go from where we are to what we need to do and keep everyone on track,” said Minten.

That includes not asking anything of anyone else that Minten is not willing to do himself.

“I’m not going to yell at anyone for not being the high F3 in the o-zone if I’m not doing it myself. Leading by example is what I try to do,” said Minten.

That approach is important to him because, like so many other elements of his game, that’s what he saw of the Leafs he hopes to call teammates in a few years.

“You notice that guys who do that (in the NHL) are valuable and coaches trust them,” said Minten. “That’s what keeps them there, and gives them a career.”

(Photo: Steve Russell / Toronto Star via Getty Images)

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