2025 T25U25: Cade Webber is #18

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Webber has never been a prospect that has gotten a lot of attention. He's tall as all hell, arguably still kinda skinny given his height, a very strong skater combined with that size and reach, and you have a defenseman who has earned a reputation for being strong defensively. His offense, however, has historically been all but non-existent. Last year, we got to see him in his first full pro season with the Marlies.

Cade Webber	Vitals
Age as of July 1	24.48
Position	LD
Height	6'7"
Weight (lbs)	210
Shoots	L
Draft Year	2019
Draft Number	99

The Player

So, after being able to actually watch him up close in the second best hockey league in the world, how have things changed for Webber's outlook? Well, the offense that wasn't there historically continued to not be there. He had 1 goal and 6 assists in 62 games between the regular season and the playoffs. He was often paired with one of Toronto's more offensively minded defensemen, like Niemelä or Villeneuve, to act as the defensive balance.

The hope for Webber was that he had some underrated puck movement ability, at least when it comes to making a first pass to move it out of his own end, and with his combination of reach and mobility could be an effective shutdown and penalty killing specialist. He sort of achieved that on the Marlies, but didn't exactly dominate in those areas. He was pretty good from the games I saw. But pretty good for a guy almost 25 in the AHL in the areas that are his big, specialized strength isn't really good enough if you're hoping for him to turn into the next Simon Benoit and contribute in the NHL.

Here's what Hardev wrote about Webber in last year's T25U25, when we ranked him 14th.

The Votes

I ranked Webber 16th, which is on the wrong side of the line where I was still at least slightly interested in the prospects I was ranking. So you can consider him the first in my tier of "I don't believe in you, but I like you enough to rank you at all" guys.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	16
Brigstew	16
Species	10
Hardev	18
shinson93	NA
Cameron	17
Zone Entry	18
Svalbard38	19
dhammm	23
adam	25
Weighted Average	18.8
Highest Vote	10
Lowest Vote	25

All but one of the voters ranked him in the top 25, Species – our resident Marlies reporter – even had him at 10! The rankings on him look all over the place, actually, which is pretty funny. I'm guessing that spread comes down to how much everyone valued the things he's good at.

The Opinions

Here's what some of the other voters had to say:

Shinson93: I really spent a lot of time watching him on the Marlies, knowing that his game is one that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet other than blocked shots. What I saw was a guy that was just a step behind in his reads and positioning, still relying on his size to try and make up for it. At his age, I wanted to see him take on more with the Marlies, but he seemed like just a big guy in the lineup being sheltered on the 3rd pair. There are just too many other D prospects with higher upside. I actually flipped a coin to pick Joe Miller at 25 over Webber.

Cameron: Webber is a dman who knows his role: don’t let pucks get to the net. He’s big and can get in front of pucks which is something he’s known for doing very well, but not known for anything outside of that. Will be fun to see if he can build off of that and become a 3rd line shutdown guy in the NHL someday.

dhammm: Cade Webber makes me think of Keaton Middleton. Remember Keaton Middleton? That Keaton Middleton whom Leafs Nation memed on back in the day? He’s actually starting to carve out an NHL resume for himself at 27 years old, and you won’t believe the team he’s doing it with. Look it up. Yes, they were cap-strapped last season, but after plugging away in a leadership role in the AHL trenches, Middleton got a call-up and made good on it. His charts are even pretty nice with it as far as do-no-harm defensive defensemen go. That says two things to me: all the ‘smart’ teams are prioritizing size among depth defensemen right now; and if a scouting staff were to convince themselves that every prospect is what he is by, I dunno, age 23, they would stand to lose out on some value from long-tail development flukes. So for Cade Webber, I’ve felt since he was acquired that his puck skills were too poor for him to lock down an NHL job, but his profile is in right now, so he’ll be more likely to get opportunities here or elsewhere than the Victor Metes of the hockey universe. That counts for something.

Hardev: Webber is right there in the zone with Villeneuve of being a Marlies defenseman who is just there. They aren’t top pair AHL defenders, meaning it’s very unlikely they reach the NHL. The Leafs have the correct collection of depth defenders that’ll insulate them from injuries. Thrun, Myers, Mermis, Benning, Rifai. Those are the defenders these two need to beat, and I don’t think they get beyond two of them. Prokop is the only wild card because we don’t really know where he’ll slot in.

With some departures from the blueline on the Marlies, we'll see if Webber steps up this year.

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