Leafs Top 50 Prospects – Juuso Ainasto

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.

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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)
#48 – Sawyer Boulton – F (Reading – ECHL, Lehigh Valley – AHL)
#47 – Cole McWard – D (Bridgeport – AHL, NY Islanders – NHL)
#46 – Rylan Fellinger – D (Flint – OHL)
#45 – Sam Stevens – F (Cincinnati – ECHL, Toronto – AHL)
#44 – Brody Pepoy – F (Saginaw – OHL)
#43 – Matt Lahey – D (Michigan State – NCAA)
#42 – Yaroslav Fedoseyev – D (Chelyabinsk Clemet – VHL, Chelyabinsk Traktor – KHL)
#41 – Cade Webber – D (Toronto – AHL)
#40 – Matthew Hlacar – F (Kitchener – OHL)
#39 – Will Belle – RW (US Nat’l Development Program)
#38 – Cooper Williams – C (Saskatoon – WHL)
#37 – Patriks Plumins – G (Zemgale – Latvia)
#36 – Chas Sharpe – D (Toronto – AHL)
#35 – Hayes Hundley – D (St. Thomas – NCAA, Toronto – AHL)
#34 – Hudson Malinoski – C (Providence – NCAA)
#33 – Joe Miller – C (Harvard – NCAA)

#32 – Juuso Ainasto – G (Jokerit Jr. – Finland)

The Leafs depleted their organizational goaltending depth this offseason, trading Joseph Woll to Philadelphia, Dennis Hildeby to Tampa Bay, and seeing Vyacheslav Peksa return to Russia. The club did add Samuel Hlavaj to partner with Calder Cup champion Artur Akhtyamov with the AHL Marlies, but with only 21-year-old Timofei Obvintsev in the long-range pipeline, GM John Chayka used a pair of his 10 draft picks on netminders: Latvian Patriks Plumins in the fourth round and Finnish netminder Juuso Ainasto in the third round.

The 18-year-old mirrors some of the Leafs more recent draftees, like Easton Cowan and Tinus-Luc Koblar, emerging from relative obscurity in the second half of their draft year. Ainasto put up rather pedestrian numbers in the junior levels for Jokerit in 2024-25 (2.90 GAA, .906 save %), but showed remarkable progress last season (1.74 GAA, .938 save %, three shutouts, 8-3-0 record in the regular season, 1.85 GAA, .925 save %, 9-3-0 in the playoffs) at the under-18 level, earning a promotion to the under-20 level.

Ainasto has the prototypical lanky frame (6’4″, 198 lbs) and, according to Elite Prospects, “is an impressive mover. On his feet, he’s explosive and shows quick footwork. But where he really shines is in the butterfly, keeping his form while moving, taking away ample net. Ainasto uses this to challenge shooters and create a black hole for shooters on direct shots.”

Depending on his progress at the U-20 level this season, Ainasto could be on the radar for Finland for the upcoming World Junior in Alberta this December, but with a March 2008 birthdate, the 2028 World Junior in December 2027, when he is 19, is more likely.