The Maple Leafs’ prospect pool is thin on defence. Enter Ben Danford

LAS VEGAS – The Toronto Maple Leafs picked 11 players in the three previous NHL Drafts.

Exactly one was a defenceman. And that defenceman, Noah Chadwick, was the 185th pick last summer, a sixth-round selection.

It’s not just that the Leafs haven’t drafted many defencemen of late. It’s that the organization hasn’t drafted the position particularly well for the last decade.

There’s a case to be made that the two best defencemen drafted by the Leafs since 2014 are Rasmus Sandin and Sean Durzi, the team’s top two picks in the 2018 draft, both of whom were later traded away.

It’s been pretty grim from a draft and development standpoint on the back end.

Enter Ben Danford, the Leafs top pick in the 2024 draft on Friday night, an 18-year-old right-shoot defenceman whom his current coach in Oshawa described as a “higher-end Chris Tanev.”

Danford grew up north of Belleville, in the tiny town of Madoc. He was a Leafs fan. He’s likely not spooked by the idea of playing in the bright lights of Toronto. Danford idolized Phil Kessel – his first jersey with a player’s name on the back was Kessel – and Morgan Rielly.

“It makes it that much more special to be drafted by your favourite team as a little kid,” Danford said.

Danford is a pick by Leafs director of amateur scout Wes Clark that, if you looked beyond the many public draft boards, you could have seen coming.

Not only does Danford fit a positional need, he ticks so many of the boxes Clark and the Leafs have for players. There was a reason Clark strode with excitement in his step, far beyond the rest of the Leafs management group, to make the pick.

Mobility? Generals head coach Derek Laxdal called Danford “an effortless skater.”

High character? Check. Danford has been captain on his minor league teams before and will likely be captain of the Generals next season. Let’s not forget how high the Leafs were on Fraser Minten because of some of the same character traits Danford exhibits.

Under Clark, intangibles have become a greater priority.

“He’s the type of kid you can sit down and have a mature conversation with,” Laxdal said.

Defensive acumen? His ability to read and close down plays is something the Leafs valued.

“Ben is an ultimate competitor,” Laxdal said.

To begin this season, Danford began asking serious questions of himself, his game and his future. Danford grew up loving Kessel because “as a little kid, you like someone who scores a lot of goals.”

But by overtly trying to produce offence, the best elements of his game – his defending – suffered. Let’s not call it a crisis of confidence, but more of an awakening. The kind of awakening about his skill set that takes some players well into their 20s to have.

Once Danford hit the playoffs he learned how valuable defending is to winning hockey games. It was then that Danford became the player he is now.

“(Danford) realized who he is as a defender. He’s not (9th pick in the draft) Zayne Parekh or a high-end offensive guy. He’s a guy who is going to defend, play heavy minutes, penalty kill and be a shot-blocking machine,” Laxdal said.

When it comes to why Clark and the Leafs took Danford higher than some draft boards thought he might go, this is important to remember: Clark has never been the least bit concerned either with where players are ranked. Like 2023 first-round pick Easton Cowan, the Leafs appreciated how strong Danford came on late in the season and how he upped the ante in his game come playoff time. He was more aggressive shooting the puck. There were more glimpses of his offensive ability, too.

“(Laxdal) opened my eyes a bit about who I’m going to be at the next level,” Danford said.

The Leafs development staff would have watched Danford more than most other players when his Generals played Cowan’s London Knights in the OHL final.

Danford said his improved playoff performance came because of how much information he soaked up from his coaches.

“Once he got into the playoffs, (Danford) calmed his game down and his game took off,” Laxdal said.

In Game 1 of the OHL’s Eastern Conference championship against the North Bay Battalion, the Battalion had a two-on-one with Danford as the lone defender. One Battalion player looked to have a back door tap-in until Danford slid across the ice to disrupt the play.

Laxdal realized then what the Leafs likely figured out, too: Danford has that dog in him.

Clark wants players who “influence winning hockey games” and they believe they found one.

“I’ll do anything for the team to win,” Danford said.

Those who have watched him agree.

“I’ve seen him block shots and you don’t think he’s going to get up off the ice,” Laxdal said. “And then he’s out there the next shift.”

There is a tenacity in Danford’s game, but also in his personality. That made him valuable to the Leafs.

Partway through the season, Danford suffered a broken nose. He played through it.

That attitude undoubtedly comes in some part from his upbringing. His father owns Danford Construction Ltd., which operates just west of Kingston. And Danford himself learned to operate heavy machinery at a young age.

“It’s fun. I’ve been doing it since I was 13. My grandpa would take me out and I would get the hang of it,” Danford said.

Next season in Oshawa, Danford will be tasked with playing even more and possibly adding more scoring to his game.

“The one thing with (Danford), he’s a young kid. Does he make mistakes? Yes. But he’s accountable for those mistakes,” Laxdal said. “He wants to get better.”

The Leafs have to hope he’ll help them begin to reverse a pattern of swinging and missing when it comes to defencemen picked at the draft.

The organization wisely picked Morgan Rielly with the fifth selection in 2012. Since then, they’ve selected 24 defencemen at the draft. An alarming number of them failed to turn out or are, at best, big-time question marks.

Outside of Sandin and Durzi, the only other hits in the bunch were Travis Dermott (2015) and Timothy Liljegren (2017), both of whom have so far topped out as third-pairing defenders in the NHL.

In 2013, the Leafs took no defencemen. In 2014, they whiffed on Rinat Valiev with the 68th pick. Four swings on D in 2015 yielded only Dermott, who played 251 games for the Leafs before he was dealt to Vancouver. The Leafs went 0-for-3 with J.D. Greenway, Keaton Middleton, and Nicolas Mattinen in 2016. After Liljegren, the Leafs used their next pick in 2017 on Eemeli Rasanen, a big defenceman who never turned out. Nor did fellow draftees that year Fedor Gordeev and Ryan O’Connell.

The Leafs got Sandin and Durzi a year later. They haven’t hit on a defenceman at the draft since.

For the most part, the team has prioritized forwards with their best picks. In their last 12 drafts, they’ve used their top pick on a defenceman only three times – Liljegren, Sandin, and now, Danford.

Adding to the group has been a clear point of focus for Leafs GM Brad Treliving. A lack of any real options internally is what has Treliving, at least in part, looking for major upgrades on the back end this summer, including Tanev.

The Leafs hope they’ve found the next, well, Tanev.

“Tanev is a guy you can put out against anybody and can shut people down. But Ben can probably produce some more offence,” Laxdal said. “Those are the guys you win championships with.”

(Photo: Mark Blinch / NHLI via Getty Images)