Leafs Top 50 Prospects – Timofei Obvintsev

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)
#31 – Semyon Der-Argushintsev – C (Chelyabinsk Traktor – KHL)
#30 – Mans Gudmundsson – D (Farjestads Jr. – Sweden)
#29 – Landon Sim – RW (Toronto – AHL)
#28 – Ryan Kirwan – F (Cincinnati – ECHL, Toronto – AHL)
#27 – Sam McCue – LW (Brantford/Ottawa – OHL)
#26 – Samuel Hlavaj – G (Iowa Wild – AHL)
#25 – Topi Niemela – D (Malmo – SHL)
#24 – Brandon Buhr – F (Union – NCAA, Toronto – AHL)
#23 – Borya Valis – RW (Toronto – AHL)
#22 – Vinny Borgesi – D (Northeastern – NCAA, Toronto – AHL)
#21 – Ryan Tverberg – C (Toronto – AHL, Toronto – NHL)
#20 – Zac Olsen – F (Saskatoon – WHL)
#19 – Alexander Plesovskikh – LW (MHK Spartak Moskva – MHL, Moscow Spartak – KHL)
#18 – Roni Hirvonen – C (Karpat – SM-Liiga)

#17 – Timofei Obvintsev – G (Gornyak-UGMK – VHL)

The Leafs added another long-range goaltending prospect at the NHL Draft in Las Vegas, selecting Obvintsev in the fifth round. The 21-year-old has been in the CSKA Moscow junior system since 2020 and had a 2.96 GAA in 16 starts in his draft year. In 2025, he played only 11 games in the junior-level MHL, posting a 2.78 GAA and a .908 save percentage. Last season, in the second-level VHL, he played just six games for Gornyak UGMK.

The Ekaterinburg native is the prototypical physical frame (6’3”, 179 lb.) that NHL clubs are looking for, but his style is more of a hybrid approach, playing in the butterfly when it is called for, but also mixing it up and not dropping down in some instances. A super-gifted athlete, Obvintsev is raw and needs to play and mature, but has remarkable dexterity, moves extremely well laterally, and is said to have the blocker of any netminder selected in the draft.

With Russia still banned by the IIHF, Obvintsev did not have a chance to play internationally as a youngster, and with the Leafs trading or not re-signing goalies Joseph Woll, Dennis Hildeby, and Slava Peksa, the club needed to replenish their netminding pipeline, and signed Obvintsev to a one-year AHL contract. The Leafs likely want to start the youngster in ECHL Cincinnati, with Akhtyamov and Samuel Hlavaj between the pipes with the Marlies, and veteran Ken Appleby adding organizational depth.