2024 T25U25: Miroslav Holinka is #9

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It's not very often that a mid to late round draft pick debuts in our T25U5 in such a high position as Holinka did this year. On the one hand, we can chalk some of that up to a general apathy to all but a tiny handful of Toronto's young players and prospects. On the other hand, only Johansson and Obvintsev were ranked at all from the other non-first round pick from this year's draft – and they were at 22nd and 23rd.

So it does seem like Holinka has already been given a lot more hype and intrigue among us voters than any of the others. That's including a guy who got drafted a full round earlier.

Miroslav Holinka	Vitals
Age as of July 1	18.64
Position	C/W
Height	6'1"
Weight (lbs)	185
Shoots	R
Draft Year	2024
Draft Number	151

The Player

Holinka, with a November birthday, is on the older side of most prospects drafted this year – excluding the re-entries, of course. If you want a more complete analysis of his point production and scouting profile, you can check out the profile I wrote on him earlier this summer:

The TL;DR of it is that Holinka is a very interesting forward who, after reading his scouting reports, you may scratch your head and wonder why he was still available in the fifth round. He got rave reviews for his offensive skills – his dangling, passing and shot. He also got good reviews for his physical and two-way play as a center.

The caveat to him is that he was only playing in Czechia's junior league for most of the year. He did play a good chunk as a pro, but while there his offense did not seem to be that effective at all. Concerns were raised about him being too much of a cowboy with his offense, trying to pull off crazy highlights as opposed to just doing the effective play.

Since I wrote that profile, some things have happened.

First, he attended Toronto's development camp, where he was one of the big standouts in their exhibition game and got a call out by Hayley Wickenheiser as a bright spot at the camp.

The second thing is that Holinka's immediate future for next season was decided – he was taken in the CHL import draft by the Edmonton Oil Kings, and he has signed to play with them. That is good news for Holinka. Edmonton is typically a very good program in the CHL, who were on a natural downturn after going for it 2+ years ago. But they are on the upswing again, with interesting young players including Joe Iginla, Parker Alcos, Blake Fiddler, Gracyn Sawchyn, and fellow Czech countryman and 2024 draft pick, Adam Jecho.

It's good for him because he'll have both more opportunity to take a big role in all situations, but also won't be completely devoid of talent around him. He will be directly competing and working along with other prospects of varying talents – some first rounders, some mid/late rounders like he is. So we can see how he stacks up against them as a good measuring stick.

The third thing is that Holinka has been playing in friendly international tournaments this off-season, before heading to the CHL. In July, he scored in all three games for Czechia's U20 team against Finland and Switzerland's U20 squads. He was a top six center, playing in all situations, and looked like one of their best players. Here's a mix of his offensive and defensive highlights – he was wearing #12 in white.

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Holinka is #12 in white for Czechia.

Holinka was also part of the Five Nations U20 tournament against top prospects from Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Czechia. These teams are made up of players who will all be very likely to make their country's World Juniors roster. Through the first two games played so far, Czechia has been icing more of a B-lineup and Holinka hasn't played. That's a good sign he's already viewed as a virtual lock for their World Junior team.

The big question/concern for Holinka is if he has the ability to make his undeniable offensive skill work within a professional hockey system. The CHL is not a professional league, but the perennially good teams – like London – tend to be closer to what the NHL plays than a lot of European leagues. If he can learn to harness it and become smarter about when and how to use it, he has a lot of tools to make him a successful NHLer. The rest is about improving around the margins, like adding more muscle, fine tuning his skating mechanics, and so on.

The Votes

Here's how everyone else voted.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	8
Brian	7
Species	20
Adam	9
Hardev	11
dhammm	16
Cameron S	10
Hound Line	9
brysplace	13
Catch-67	10
Sclodiggity	8
shinson93	13
The Bag	15
Zone Entry	8
Weighted Average	11.21
Highest Vote	7
Lowest Vote	20

I am driving the bus on the Holinka bandwagon, but others aren't far behind me. I always like to pick one or two prospects to stick my neck out for when I just feel good watching them play. In recent years, that's included Nikita Grebenkin and Matt Knies, who I will pat myself on the back over. It also included guys like William Villeneuve or Veeti Miettinen though. The key distinguishing factor for me is that the former two immediately blew my socks off with how surprisingly good they were. The latter looked good in flashes, but did not look spectacular and I did some self-convincing to hype on them so much early on.

Watching Holinka so far, I definitely get very similar feelings as Greb and Knies. That doesn't mean I think he's as good as either of them, just that I keep wanting to watch more of his games and highlights because I just see him making good plays all the time. Honestly, the other guy so far that I've gotten this feeling has been the goalie Obvintsev, but that T25U25 article was out before I could see any of his pre-season games.

I've simply loved what I've read about Holinka in his scouting reports, and I've started confirming most of it myself in the games he's played since the draft. I feel there is almost no question that he's better than other mid-round picks from this and recent seasons.

The Opinions

Here are some thoughts from the other voters:

dhammm: Of all the picks the Leafs made on day 2 of the 2024 draft, this is the only one I really liked, and it seems like he's captured the hearts and minds of a lot of Leafs Nation too. A 6'1" centreman with nifty mittens and defensive instincts who made his way into some big-league games in Czechia? Sign me up for that.

Sclodiggity: Hype train is in overdrive based largely on post-development camp comments from Dr. Wickenheiser. I’m buying it though. As a 5th round pick we should temper our expectations but Holinka seems as good a bet as any to develop into a serious prospect that could be better than replacement level in the NHL. If you need new prospects to follow, pick him.

shinson93: Marincin told me this guy’s the real deal.

Hound Line: The dev camp highlight and the limited clips from his junior games Brigstew posted shows a guy with good hands and an understanding of how to use them to manipulate opponents with feints and hesitations. If the reports of his defensive awareness bear out over a full season in junior he could be pushing for a top 5 spot on next year's list.

Cathy: I chose to discard a lot of the simple clichés about prospects this year, to consciously ignore them. One of those I do still believe is that players drafted out of the Czech league are not as good as they seem. So a player drafted out of Czech junior is even less likely to be good. The main reason behind this is that top Czech prospects usually go somewhere else to play before draft age. But, but, but, this guy just looks so good. And he's not just points which mislead so much. He's got a game all over the ice, like Roni Hirvonen and Nikita Grebyonkin. So I said, what the hell, let's believe in him this year.

So what do you all think? Are we way too high on Holinka, who was a 5th round pick that was just drafted and has no real experience in any of the 'major' hockey development leagues? Or are we right to be hyping him up so soon?

Up & Over 🚨 pic.twitter.com/fntTV9PvqE
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) July 7, 2024

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