Leafs Top 50 Prospects –  Henrik Rybinski

The Toronto Maple Leafs organization has drafted and developed a number of youngsters currently playing in the NHL (Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly, Matthew Knies), but the club under former GM’s Kyle Dubas and Brad Treliving, and new GM John Chayka have had different ideas of what kind of prospects they wanted to populate the organization with. 

As we’ve done on a yearly basis, we will be ranking the club’s top prospects over the upcoming weeks based on their progress in either the NCAA, CHL, Europe, ECHL, or AHL, and their potential to make the Leafs roster and make a contribution in the future.

Players are eligible for the list if they have not played more than 82 NHL games and are 25 years old or younger:

Leafs Prospect List

#50 – Blake Smith – D (Toronto – AHL)

#49 – Henrik Rybinski – F (Hershey – AHL)

The Maple Leafs winning the Calder Cup was as much about the performance of top prospects (Easton Cowan and Ben Danford), as it was about those youngsters who have a chance of graduating to the NHL (Ryan Tverberg, Jacob Quillan, Luke Haymes, William Villeneuve, Artur Akhtyamov). The club also added AHL veterans who were pieces of the puzzle that made a championship possible. Earlier this month, the club plucked a player from one of their Eastern competitors, signing forward Henrik Rybinski to a two-year NHL deal.

The 25-year-old was a 2019 fifth-round pick of the Florida Panthers out of the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds. After two seasons, Florida did not sign the Vancouver native to an entry-level deal, and after a 65-point season with Seattle, he joined the Washington Capitals organization on an AHL deal. With the Hershey Bears, the 6’2″, 190 lb. forward won a Calder Cup in 2023-24 and compiled 99 points (30 goals, 69 assists) in 222 games over four seasons. In the last two seasons, he reached the 30-point plateau.

Toronto signed Rybinski to a two-year, $1.75 million NHL deal, with the first year two-way and the second year one-way. As a right-shot who can play wing and center, he has the versatility that seemed to be a prerequisite for all the Leafs signings this summer, and that could result in a call-up if injuries strike with the Leafs, but the chances of seeing significant NHL time are slim.