2025 T25U25: Tinus Luc Koblar is #6

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As Toronto loves to do in recent years, their first pick of the draft was a name that was off the board. Here's a fun recap of where Toronto's various "top picks" of a draft made their debut on the T25 for the past five years:

2024 – Ben Danford – 5th
2023 – Easton Cowan – 10th
2022 – Fraser Minten – 9th
2021 – Matthew Knies – 10th
2020 – Rodion Amirov (sad cry) – 6th

On the one hand, it's interesting to see the last two years having a jump in where we rank Toronto's top picks. However, it's also worth noting that the further back in time you go, the better and deeper Toronto's prospect pool was. In 2021 when Knies had his debut, for example, ahead of him was Dermott, Hirvonen and Niemelä when they were still in Finland and doing well at the World Juniors, Liljegren and Robertson when they were still prospects, and of course Amirov, Marner and Matthews.

Tinus Luc Koblar	Vitals
Age as of July 1	17.95
Position	C
Height	6'3"
Weight (lbs)	190
Shoots	L
Draft Year	2025
Draft Number	64

The Player

If you want a detailed look at who Koblar is as a player, I'll refer back to my profile I wrote about him after the draft.

The TL;DR is that Koblar is a long term project, very raw right now but has a lot of potential. He's big and physical, he can play as a solid two-way centre, he's a good forechecker, he's a very hard worker, and he looks like he has some good potential as an offensive contributor that he seems very close to figuring out.

The project part will be cleaning up some mechanical elements of his game, like his skating and his shot, and practicing and practicing and practicing some more to unlock his skills to the point that he can be more successful on a more regular basis with the plays he tries to make.

Going back to the thing I wrote in Johansson's T25U25 article, what I like about Koblar is that he's already had one leap in his development. What he is as a player now is an almost night and day difference between where he was at the start of last season. And I picked up some tidbits from the commentary around the development camp to believe he's already made a big step in the quality of his shot.

That's why Koblar is another guy where I am buying the leap(s), and buying in on him aggressively even if it seems early. I don't know how much time he spent in Toronto this summer but I hope he got to meet with Knies and spend some time picking up some of his tricks as a power forward. The puck handling and puck protection especially, how to use his size, etc.

The Votes

Shockingly, I was not the only one to go pretty aggressive on Koblar. Only one of the voters did not have him in their top 10, two of us had him in the top 5, and four alone had him at 6th.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	6
Brigstew	5
Species	6
Hardev	6
shinson93	3
Cameron	8
Zone Entry	7
Svalbard38	8
dhammm	14
adam	6
Weighted Average	6.9
Highest Vote	3
Lowest Vote	14

Shockingly, I was not the one to rank Koblar the highest. I wrote about Koblar before the draft as a target for Toronto, I've seen him go through one leap already, and I am all in on him taking at least one more. The only guys I couldn't bring myself to rank Koblar ahead of are Knies, Cowan, Danford, and Maccelli. So two prospects drafted in the first round, Toronto's best young player, and an established NHL regular. I liked Thrun enough to put him ahead of some other regular NHLers who, so far, seem like they're more depth (NRob, Thrun) and all other prospects.

The Opinions

Here's what the other voters had to say about Koblar:

Shinson93: I am high on Koblar. I’ve been waiting years for the Leafs to get some center depth high in the draft. Similar to Johansson, I’m looking at his family stock (olympian parents) and projecting he’s still got more to go on his development curve. He’s already got size and skill and a high end compete level. I’ll be watching his WJC games and if he gets any Leksands SHL games this year.

Cathy: I almost ranked him over Robertson. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. But I will bet you I’ll think I should have some day. First, his family is an advantage to him. Not genetically, that sort of talk about athletes is both grotesque and a misrepresentation of how genetics work, but because his parents understand what it takes, how long it takes, how hard it is, and what you give up. And on top of that, he’s in what is clearly a good hot house development system with Leksands, and he’s got Johansson right there with him. It’s not Willy and Pasta, but it also kind of is in form if not level. And make no mistake, I’m very realistic about his potential level. He’s not going to be a star. He’s going to be fun, though.

dhammm: It’ll take a few seasons of explosive growth from Koblar for me to forecast a future for him like that of Holmberg or Engvall, which is fine but not exactly a spectacular outcome. The rank I gave him is mostly out of deference to scouts I read and take seriously.

Svalbard38: I think when we drafted Koblar, a lot of people got flashbacks to Mark Hunter and his Large Adult Sons. TLK is 6’3, wasn’t ranked especially highly by Central Scouting, and when we drafted size for the rest of the draft, some of the fanbase got worried. Central Scouting’s ranking isn’t everything though. Time and time again we see players go ahead of where the publicly available scouting says they should go, and if we know that other teams were in on Koblar, 64 might have been the right place to pick him. He’s more than a big body, too. Everything I’ve seen since drafting him praises his hockey IQ and his drive to win, and those qualities never go out of style.

So now it's your turn. Tell us what you think about Koblar and where you had him on your list!

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