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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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TORONTO — Moving on from a play-in round loss has proven to be a drawn-out process this summer for Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas, who has no choice but to wait for the NHL’s Toronto playoff bubble to clear out of his team’s facilities before fully transitioning into off-season mode.

That would normally start with the Leafs bringing prospects to the city for their annual week-long development camp. But the COVID-19 pandemic has left players everywhere in a lurch, discouraged from gathering with others and waiting for news about if and when their leagues will restart.

The Leafs pivoted last week to a virtual development camp instead, hoping it would provide prospects with some sense of stability in the most uncertain of times.

“We've tried to maintain as much impact as we can on the player's development while also knowing that this is a challenging time for them,” Dubas told TSN. “They’re at a pivotal time in their career and progression, and there really is nothing to do. They can't come to Toronto for the camp, they have no games to play, no practices. But once the [NHL] bubble clears out from Toronto we will get our practice rink back and we'll be able to open that up for off-ice training and workouts. We’ve already got a lot of the players that have had their seasons done for a while now [wanting to train], so that accessibility will be a key.”

One player eager to join the Leafs ranks is Alexander Barabanov. The KHL standout signed a one-year, entry-level contract with Toronto on April 7, and Dubas said he’ll be coming to Toronto with his wife in a few weeks to begin the mandatory 14-day quarantine period before the 26-year-old winger gets to work with his first NHL team.

But handling each player’s next step has been a distinctly individual process for Dubas, one that will remain ongoing as the NHL has yet to finalize a start date for its 2020-21 regular season.

While Barabanov has chosen to settle in early with the Leafs, another of the team’s recent signees, defenceman Mikko Lehtonen, is taking a different path.

He inked a one-year, entry-level deal with Toronto on May 4, but has returned to his former KHL squad, Jokerit Helsinki, until NHL training camps begin. In July, the league released a tentative start date for 2020-21 camps as Nov. 17.

“We've been able to work out an arrangement with Jokerit to have Mikko loaned there and play there for the first couple months of their season, which we're very thankful for,” Dubas said. “They wanted to bring him back and he wanted to get up and playing. Barabanov wanted to get in and get to work with our staff here, and we support both players’ decisions. Jokerit has been great dealing with our people and making sure that Lehtonen is following our program there with them, and we're very fortunate that they were open to having him start the season there before he comes over in November before camp.”

Like most things in the COVID-19 era, there is “no set-in-stone way” for Dubas to conduct business now, especially when it comes to prospects. Much of the decision making is based on player preferences, at least for those fortunate enough to have options.

Toronto has been able to send Egor Korshkov on loan to the KHL’s Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, while Filip Kral has gone to HC Prerov in the Czech Republic and Jesper Lindgren is back with the SHL’s Modo. But most players are waiting in limbo, standing by for word on what’s to come.

Dubas holds particular concern for prospects in the NCAA, and those who were just on the cusp of turning pro.

“The guys in Europe who we've been able to loan, they're back and they're playing,” Dubas said. “So I don't worry so much about them. I do worry about our players that are in college because it's not just an athletic decision for them. They've elected to go to college for a reason and they value their academics…but right now [their seasons are] still up in the air. And I also worry about the players that were just getting set to become pros. If they can't really go back to junior for a bit, and if they can't be loaned to Europe, they're sort of [stuck]. It was a big turning point in their lives, and now it's a big pause, so they sort of end up in no man's land.”

Another unknown for Dubas is exactly how the team’s current crop of prospects will fare at the next main training camp. If that comes about in the fall, the change in schedule could make for tough decisions on bringing in talented prospects as usual, or waiting to have them sign entry-level deals at a later time.

“I look at our third-round pick, [defenceman] Mikko Kokkonen, and I don't know that we would want to disrupt his season in Finland where they've got him wearing a letter now as a young player,” Dubas said. “But we would have a discussion with the team [Jukurit Mikkeli] and his agent about it. And then there’s [2019 fourth-round pick] Nick Abruzzese, who we’re waiting on. He's 21 now and had a great season [44 points in 33 games] as a forward at Harvard. We feel with his intelligence and work ethic and skill level, he’ll continue to get stronger and because of his age probably has a faster chance of contending for a roster spot.”

Neither Kokkonen or Abruzzese have officially signed with the Leafs yet, but 2019 fourth-round pick Mikhail Abramov and 2018 third-round pick Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, both 19, have three-year, entry-level pacts in place.

Dubas has high hopes for both of them in a potential main camp, but Abramov (of the QMJHL's Victoriaville Tigres) and Der-Arguchintsev (from the OHL's Peterborough Petes) are eligible to play another season in junior as well. Right now, the OHL has set a tentative start date on the 2020-21 season as Dec. 1, while the QMJHL is planning to return on Oct. 1.

“Abramov has just gotten done with the Russian national team, and we're looking forward to seeing where he’s at if we’re able to bring him in for camp,” Dubas said. “I think [Der-Arguchintsev] will need some time. He needs a lot of work with regards to his training and strength and conditioning and just the continued development of his habit base and consistency in that. So I think that's an exciting camp [opportunity] for him. I don't necessarily see him yet as a challenger for [a spot], but that will depend on the condition that he comes back in and then the work that he puts in here in the next number of months.”

The Leafs annual prospect development camp would normally be a critical week for all their top prospects in getting ready for a next step in training camp.

That event is regularly scheduled for immediately after the draft each year, but the Leafs knew back in March, as the COVID-19 pandemic was picking up steam, that such a gathering likely wouldn’t be as feasible.

So senior director of player development Scott Pellerin got to work crafting a different experience for Toronto’s prospects, which resulted in last week’s first-ever virtual development camp.

“We wanted to provide something to our prospects and our players that we felt was important, not only for their development but also during this [challenging] time,” Pellerin said. “We focused on our development pillars, talking about character and well-being and then about some technical and tactical things, strength and conditioning and nutrition, all of the core elements to becoming a really good professional hockey player or a really good person.”

The 26 attendees were treated to a morning session of hockey talks, where Pellerin said he and his staff shared videos and concepts. Then in the afternoon, players participated in seminars taught by other departments, like media relations.

To pull off what he hoped would be “the first and only” virtual camp of his career, Pellerin tapped into the wide range of experiences amongst his staff, including assistant director of player development Hayley Wickenheiser and skill development consultant Nik Antropov.

“We had an open panel one day with Hayley and Nik, where they were talking about some of the goals that they scored in the NHL,” Pellerin said. “It went very well. Everybody had a strong contribution in all different areas, and we had some special guests that came in too.”

Thanks to Antropov, there will even be an encore presentation of the camp to make sure none of Toronto’s prospects are left out.

“We're actually going to do another camp with [our European and Russian prospects] for one or two days, and Antropov is going to be translating all of our seminars and going through those with them,” Pellerin explained. “We don't want them to miss out on their own development and Nik has done an incredible job in helping our Eastern European players have an orientation and understand and feel comfortable with our program.”

Pellerin said the biggest challenge of camp was making sure the messages were resonating with players. He said the most important goals for the franchise were the creation of relationships and engagement with players. While most of them were nervous early on, by the end Pellerin could see leaders emerging already.

And if the Leafs did their job right, those players left the camp experience feeling empowered and hopeful about better days ahead.

“A lot of it is about a player’s mindset,” Dubas said. “They might be at a pretty perilous point in their development, but they're still pretty positive and they're working their butt off in whatever circumstance they're in. We're trying to remain as flexible as possible and make sure even though the circumstances are not perfect that we're still doing as much as we can for them.”​