Maple Leafs about to lose rights to a pair of NCAA players

August 15th is a deadline. Not the most important deadline on the NHL calendar, but one that will at the very least impact the number of players in the Leafs prospect pool. NCAA players not returning to school next season who have not yet been signed by the team that has drafted them will become free agents. For that Maple Leafs that means Wyatt Schingoethe and John Fusco are about to become free agents, with (according to PuckPedia) Michael Koster already having become a free agent earlier this summer.

Michael Koster is a 5’10 defenceman that has spent the past two seasons as the captain of the University of Minnesota team. He’s a former teammate of Matthew Knies and hit a career best three seasons ago with 29 points when the Minnesota team was at its height including Brock Faber, Logan Cooley, Jimmy Snuggerud, as well as Knies. As those players moved on, Koster played a bigger role but understandably saw his production decline. As a 5’10 defenceman that is already 24, it doesn’t seem like a surprise that the Leafs haven’t signed him and he presently has an AHL deal in place with the Iowa Wild.

John Fusco is another 5’10 defenceman that is at the end of his college career. While he never had the peak season that Koster did, he has been steadily improving offensively while on a less capable Darmouth team.

Fusco made the move over from Harvard to Darmouth after his freshman season and seemed to find more comfort in their lineup, steadily improving the entire time. The lack of size and the lack of standout production likely factor into the Leafs plans here.

Wyatt Schingoethe struggled to become a regular in the Western Michigan lineup until his last season. Although a centre, Schingoethe’s strength has always been more on the defensive side of the puck and perhaps that will potentially make another team interested in signing him as with all of three of these players, it likely won’t be with the Leafs or even the Marlies. Like Fusco and Koster, Schingoethe is 5’10 and while size plays a part in the consideration and would potentially grant them a bit more of runway for development, the lack of dominance and age along with size make them easy players to pass on for the Maple Leafs.

There is pretty solid evidence the Maple Leafs are passing on these players. None of them were attendees at the Maple Leafs development camp earlier this summer and presumably that would have been in attendance when fellow NCAAers who wrapped up their college careers, Luke Haymes and John Prokop were. While moving on from these prospects seems like a reasonable decision it is worth noting that the Leafs gave up on Dakota Joshua after an underwhelming college career and he quickly found his way in the NHL. Dominic Toninato is another somewhat recent example of the Leafs not seeing the potential in one of their college picks and he’s had a steady depth career in the NHL as well.

On the flipside, more often than not the Leafs cutting prospects loose was the right call and even with older college players like Toninato and Greg Pateryn, the Leafs not wanting to stick with them probably didn’t keep anyone in the organization up at night.

That’s not to say that the Leafs should completely ignore the August 15th NCAA free agency date. There is some potential for worthwhile AHL contracts in the mix and with Toronto still sitting on a few standard player contract spots available, rolling the dice on someone outside the organization has some appeal if expectations are kept low.