Fear not, Leafs fans. The Toronto Marlies are fast, fit and highly skilled. This year might be hard for the big club, but the seeds are planted.

By Dan Robson in Toronto
Photography by Luis Mora

he future of the Toronto Maple Leafs eats lunch at a folding table in a long, open corridor behind their dressing room, next to a maze of white wooden fencing used for corralling livestock at agricultural shows. The Ricoh Coliseum has showcased the finest horses, cows, sheep and pigs for nearly a century. The hockey players are a relatively new addition. But the three shovelling a post-practice meal of beef short ribs and macaroni salad are among the prized specimens that the Leafs plan to cultivate into a core of young talent that will one day bring winning hockey back to the nation’s biggest city. Here, in matching grey Toronto Marlies hoodies, sit William Nylander, Kasperi Kapanen and Connor Brown—or, as they affectionately refer to each other: Willie, Kaspi and Brownie. Side by side, they seem more like a group of teenage friends goofing off in the back of a high-school math class than the forwards a downtrodden Leafs fan base is pinning its hopes on. They chirp each other about their talent in video games, FIFA in particular, and critique each other’s posts on Instagram. Each enjoys the relative anonymity that comes with being a minor-league player in an enormous city. Only Nylander gets recognized on the streets—likely a combined result of his high profile as the Leafs’ first-round pick in 2014 and his well-maintained blond coif and boy-band appeal. “They ask for a picture and say, ‘Oh, you’re going to play for the Leafs,’” Nylander says with a sly grin, hints of his Swedish roots in his voice. “I’m the guy they get to take the picture,” Kapanen says, laughing.

None of the three stands above six feet tall, and each will need to eat many more helpings of short ribs before their lean frames are NHL-ready. They are fresh-faced and clean-shaven kids—Brown is the eldest at 21; Nylander and the Finnish-born Kapanen are just 19. A group of players from the visiting Grand Rapids Griffins walk past the table, and the three Marlies go quiet, staring meekly up at their opponents, who look like Viking warriors fresh from some dark, bloody battle. The Detroit Red Wings farm team’s squad is one of oldest in the American Hockey League, while the Marlies are among the youngest. The boys quietly nod hellos as the Griffins pass. A few moments go by before any of them speaks again. The next evening, Kapanen will be slew-footed and thrown hard to the ice by Tyler Bertuzzi, evoking the charm of his infamous uncle Todd. In the same game, a slapshot will break a bone in Brown’s ankle, putting him out of action for at least a month. Nylander will fare better, scoring twice in a 6–1 win.

Such are the ups and downs of the ongoing education of the Leafs-in-waiting. There will be more cheap shots, more injuries and many more goals before any of Toronto’s prized prospects are presented to the fans so desperately awaiting their arrival. A long rebuild is under way, and the team’s brass, led by president Brendan Shanahan, seen-it-all general manager Lou Lamoriello and $50-million head coach Mike Babcock, are sticking to a plan that hinges on ignoring the “Are we there yet?” back-seat cries from Leafs fans. Since Shanahan took the top job in the spring of 2014, the team has made drafting and development its focus. With the help of assistant GM Kyle Dubas and director of player personnel Mark Hunter, the Leafs have stockpiled high-end prospects with a focus on speed, creativity and scoring.

The shift was immediately apparent in Shanahan’s approach to the draft. Toronto started off its goal-scoring youth movement by picking Nylander eighth overall in 2014. He scored 32 points in 37 games for the Marlies in 2014–15, joining the team halfway through the season as an 18-year-old. The Leafs added more offensive power by taking Mitch Marner with the fourth-overall pick in the 2015 draft. The 18-year-old is spending another season with the London Knights, where he tallied 126 points in 63 games last year. In the second round, Toronto picked up Jeremy Bracco, another high-scoring forward who is playing this year with the Kitchener Rangers, and defenceman Travis Dermott, who is back for another season with the Erie Otters.

In the meantime, the actual Leafs are one of the worst offensive teams in the NHL. Expect that to last for some time. Instead of rushing a kid like Nylander up to the big leagues for an added scoring boost, the team has taken a vow of patience. The talent will stay down with the baby Leafs until it has fully matured in a system carefully designed to emulate the style of hockey Babcock expects of his players. The Marlies are being carefully moulded, and there’s no timeline for when each player will arrive in the show. “These are young prospects. Some of them are going to take longer than expected; some are going to take shorter than expected,” says Dubas, the 29-year-old wunderkind in his second year in the Leafs front office. “It’s not a very scientific method that’s used to determine how long a player needs to play in the AHL. It’s our job to ensure that the Marlies are ready to drop right in and Mike doesn’t have to inefficiently use his time to educate them on how to play the way he wants them to.”

Until then, the future of the Leafs unfolds before a sparse but passionate crowd at Ricoh. The beat of a drum echoes through the arena, hammered out by a man with a long white moustache and a white Marlies sweater. He bellows, “Let’s go Marlies!” eliciting an earnest response from the 2,790 scattered throughout a rink that seats 8,000. The cheer rises every few minutes, between rehearsed performances of “I’m blind… I’m deaf… I want to be a ref!” Contests during the game offer free upgrades to premium seats along the glass, the majority of which are empty anyway. Most of the sweaters worn in the stands feature the names of the Marlies’ young stars. There are only a few Leafs sweaters, including one worn by a stocky, grey-bearded man, which is adorned with the words “Shit Since” and the number 67.

Up in the corporate box, Lamoriello surveys the scene from on high with several of his lieutenants, including Dubas, who also serves as GM of the Marlies. On this day, Cliff Fletcher—former Leafs GM and current senior adviser—sits alone in a box next to them. All eyes are on the talent developing below. Mike Babcock has been known to find a seat in the stands when the Leafs aren’t playing. He calls Marlies head coach Sheldon Keefe regularly, checking in on the progress of the prospects. Keefe, in his first year as an AHL coach after cutting his teeth with the Ontario Hockey League’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, makes regular appearances in coaches’ meetings at Leafs practices and games. The entire Marlies staff went to meetings with the Leafs staff leading up to the NHL Draft, through the summer and in training camp. “He obviously recognizes the importance of what’s happening here,” Keefe says of Babcock.

The vision across the organization is clear. One day, the Leafs will be a team built on speed that moves together and possesses the puck. It will be a team that suffocates the opposition and forces them to make mistakes. It will be fit, tenacious and highly skilled. That’s the kind of game that currently unfolds on the ice at Ricoh Coliseum. It’s the perfect game for the boy band that could be Willie, Kaspi and Brownie.

Nylander is the blue-chip prospect among them. He’s also the most NHL-ready. He skates circles around most of his opponents in the AHL. A centreman, he sees the ice in ways most are incapable of. “He’s a special offensive player. He’s patient and poised. He has an elite shot,” says Keefe. “Those guys are rare at this level.”

Nylander grew up in NHL rinks. He was born while his father Michael was playing for the Calgary Flames and learned his trade while his dad skated with the Chicago Blackhawks, Washington Capitals, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. In 2013, William played several games alongside his father in Sweden’s minor pro leagues before making the jump to the Swedish Elite League. “I liked to laugh at him all the time,” Nylander says of sitting next to his old man in the dressing room. “I’d try to rip on him.”

Nylander has the most swagger of the three, with a fun, boyish manner. On the ice, he’s like a puppy chasing after a ball. During a photo shoot, he drifts toward loose pucks any chance he gets. He wagers $100 with Kapanen to see who can hit the other’s stationary stick from across the ice. When he wins, he celebrates gleefully and informs his teammate that he plans to collect. Later, he flips a puck off the ice and bats it out of the air, sending it top shelf, and starts singing “Jose! Jose, Jose, Jose!” the chant Blue Jays fans sing for slugger Jose Bautista when he hits a home run. Nylander followed the Jays’ post-season run with great interest. He knows how crazy the city could get if it happened to enjoy the same success in hockey. He acknowledges that there’s a lot of pressure, but says he relishes it. “It makes me play better. I like it,” he says. “I’m not worried right now—but maybe later.”

Nylander is just as eager to make his debut in the NHL as Toronto fans are to welcome him. He laughs uncomfortably when asked when he thinks he’ll be up with the Leafs. “I don’t know,” he says. “It depends how well I play. Maybe in the next couple of weeks. I want to be up there as fast as possible, but I have to play well here first. [Then] I’ll probably get the chance.”

Along with Nylander, a lot of hope is riding on Kapanen, who was the key piece the Leafs picked up when they dealt Phil Kessel to the Penguins in the off-season. Kapanen went 22nd overall in the 2014 draft, but many had him pegged to go in the top 15—and the Leafs have said they had been watching him for some time. Like Nylander, Kapanen grew up around the NHL while his father, Sami, played out a successful career as a winger with the Carolina Hurricanes and the Philadelphia Flyers. He developed into an NHL prospect playing for KalPa in Finland, where he also had the opportunity to play on a line with his father. The father-son duo would often bicker about missed passes, then laugh about it on car rides home.

Since he made the move to Toronto, where he lives alone in a downtown condo, regular phone calls with his dad have been essential. Kapanen doesn’t hide the fact that he gets homesick. And it didn’t help that he started his first two weeks of the season lying on a couch at home, sick with the flu, watching reruns of Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother. The setback resulted in a slow start to his rookie season in the AHL, but the Leafs believe he can develop into a highlight-reel threat on offence. “He’s shown bursts of speed that can break open a game,” says Keefe. He needs more time to adapt to the game in the AHL and pack on some of the pounds he shed while ill. (He did his part by stealing a few short ribs from Brown’s plate before Brown arrived for lunch.)

Despite leading the AHL in rookie scoring with 61 points last season, Brown has the lowest profile of the bunch. He doesn’t mind—that’s been the case since he was a kid playing for a powerhouse Toronto Marlboros minor hockey team coached by his father, Dan. The Leafs, under then-GM Brian Burke, took Brown in the sixth round of the 2012 draft, 156th overall. Two seasons later, he led the Canadian Hockey League in scoring with 128 points in 68 games, playing for a stacked Erie Otters team that featured his close friend Dane Fox, now in the Canucks system, and two 16-year-old stars—Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome.

Brown is blessed with remarkable hockey IQ. What he does away from the puck is more impressive than what he does with it. From the seats at Ricoh, it’s hard to keep track of him—he’s everywhere, grinding away. “Brown is an extremely intelligent player,” says Keefe, who was first impressed by the right-winger when he coached against him in the OHL. “He’s the kind of guy you want to have play on every line because he can do so much.”

But, like Kapanen, Brown had a slow start to the season, frustrated by the post several times, then he broke his ankle in the Griffins game, which will keep him out through November at least. But bet on the red-haired kid, who grew up playing every morning on his backyard rink just west of Toronto, to fulfill the storybook narrative. Perhaps more than any of them, Brown knows the agony of losing the city has endured. He grew up watching the Leafs at the turn of the century, the last time Toronto really had a contender on the ice. He still lives at home with his parents, sleeping under the same hockey scoreboard light he’s had since he was a kid—on it, the Leafs are leading 2–1, the time remaining forever 12:46. The team is likely to feel stuck in the same place for at least another season or two before a young player like Brown plays under the real Air Canada Centre scoreboard. Then, maybe, Kapanen will be in the picture instead of snapping one for Nylander and his fans. And the Toronto faithful will finally get to fill the rink with chants for Willie. Until then, the Leafs’ future skates six kilometres down the road at Ricoh, under protection and developing with care, waiting on the farm until “one day” is finally here.

This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine.