The Buds Shining Young Stars

The Buds Shining Young Stars

The 2016-2017 season for the Maple leafs, was not what many expected. They took the president trophy winners to six game.  Doing this with 7 rookies on the team was unbelievable. The leafs have a lot to look forward to this upcoming season as well. The Buds shining young stars, Mitch Marner and William Nylander both had a stellar year putting up 61 points each. Auston Matthews also put up 40 goals and won  the Calder Trophy last season. The fans, team, and the rest of the league is expecting them to do even better. Toronto will look to continue to be a powerhouse on the powerplay this year. They finished with the second best powerplay percentage last year. Teams need to watch out for the combo of  the Buds shining young stars Matthews and Nylander on the powerplay. Both had combined total of 47 points on the powerplay.

Other young impacts

The young team looks to prove themselves once again this year in hopes they make the playoffs once again. Leafs rookies, Zach Hyman and Connor Brown did not have stellar years like the big three. However, they still made an impact for the team. Brown put up 20 goals and 36 points, while Hyman lead the team with 4 shorthanded goals. The Buds shining young stars broke 5 franchise records last season, all rookie records. Russian rookie defense-men Nikita Zaitsev also had a solid season with 36 points. He was on the second defensive pairing and proved his own for his first year in the NHL. Zaitsev  impressed coach Babcock and the leafs that he reached a contract extension for 31.5 million for seven years.

The 2017 draft ended up being quite a good draft for the leafs. They drafted Timothy Liljegren 17th overall in the first round. This was huge for the Leafs as Liljegren was projected to be taken second overall to the Colorado Avalanche. Fortunately for the Leafs, teams were scared to pick him due to him missing over two months of his season due to mono. The Leafs weakest aspect of their team would be their defense. Hopefully, the gamble of taking the potential superstar will pay off and help the leafs in the back end. If it does, Liljegren will be consider one of the Buds shining young stars.

Overall future of the leafs

The leafs had a great season with multiple players getting career high points in a single season. The following link shows the stats for the 2016-2017 Leafs team. Coach Babcock has high hopes for the team and loves the adjustments made this off season. Training camp has started and the Buds shining young star, as well as the veterans have looked like a team that has played together for years. Teams this year should be aware of the young talent from the Leafs team and should not take them for granted. The Maple Leafs look to have a great start when the season begins on October 5. Their first goal is to win game one, then the season, and hopefully this will be the year the leafs take home the Stanley Cup.

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