Maple Leafs Prospect Report: Alexander Bilecki

Last summer, one of the prospects I was the most hyped on was Bilecki. This isn't because I thought he was the best player, it's more because I liked his style of play, and I thought he was one of the most realistic options that Toronto could draft (outside of McKenna, which was extremely obvious).

For a reminder of my thoughts before the Leafs even announced Bilecki as their second-round selection, you can read my pre-draft profile:

2026 NHL Draft Profile: Alexander Bilecki

Bilecki has been buried in the depth chart for a strong Kitchener defensive group, but he's made the most of his time and stepped up when needed.

PPP LeafsBrian S

For a quick reminder of my thoughts on Bilecki after the draft, but before this season, I wrote his T25U25 profile where I elaborated a bit more on the stylistic reasons why I liked him so much:

2026 T25U25: Alexander Bilecki is #9

Toronto added a new top defense prospect to their pool this summer, and he debuts in the T25U25 this year in the top 10.

PPP LeafsBrian S

So if I were to summarize my thoughts, borrowing from those past articles combined with what points remained in my head, I like Bilecki so much because:

• He's got a very solid foundation of physical tools – good size with potential for more physical growth (6'2", 181 lbs) and very good athleticism, including skating.
• He's got a very solid set of offensive skills – puck handling, passing, offensive instincts, and even shooting to a lesser extent.
• He's got, to me, an interesting set of pseodo-defensive skills and greater defensive potential thanks to his physical tools – puck retrievals, zone exits, and flashes of higher-level physical, shutdown capabilities.

The issues around Bilecki were around the inconsistencies in his defensive and physical game, but I saw both areas as having more likely ways to improve compared to issues in other parts of a player's game – like skating or lack of physical tools.

STATS AND CONTEXT

• Position: Left-shot defenseman
• League(s): WHL
• Height: 6'2"
• Weight: 181 lbs
• Birthdate: May 9th, 2008
• Drafted: 158th overall (5th round)

As of writing this, Bilecki sits third in the OHL for points for defensemen born in the same year. He's only one point back of the two ahead of him, with two games in hand on one of them. With 2 goals and 15 points in 14 games, he's having the kind of jump in offensive production that everyone was expecting given his much increased role.

Where, last year, Bilecki was playing on the third pair, averaging around 12-15 minutes per game on a stacked team that won the Memorial Cup, this year he is The Guy. He has been on their top pair all season, though he's sometimes been moved to play on the right side rather than his natural (left) side. Instead of getting occasional secondary power-play time, again this year he is by far the top unit PP quarterback. He is tied for the team lead in power-play points with 7, and he leads the team in total assists with 13 (8 of them are primary). He's tied for third on the team in total points, and by points per game he's tied for second.

Bilecki is even third on the team in shots on goal with 40, which normally isn't something I love for a defenseman, but his playstyle means he's not just taking low-percentage shots from the point. He looks for opportunities to carry it off the point or sneak in when the puck is down low to get a backdoor pass into the slot. They're much higher danger than most defensemen I see in junior. For example, in his most recent goal, he used his instincts and mobility to turn a 2-on-2 rush into a 3-on-2 rush by simply outskating the three opposing forwards, and slipped a shot in close through the five hole.

I don't expect him to ever be a top goal scorer in the NHL, but his shot from medium to close-range is good enough to be a consistent goal threat. His 2 goals on 40 shots is lower than it should be – I've seen him hit a few posts and crossbars, or goalies make outrageous saves, or other instances of bad luck that won't continue forever. Case in point, both of those goals came in back-to-back games this past week. Dude was snake-bit before this.

Suffice to say, when I said before that Bilecki was a better defenseman than his points, minutes or role last year indicated, this is what I meant. Any scout who watched him said the same thing – this guy will have an offensive breakout this season.

THE EYE TEST

I'm not going to bother talking much about Bilecki's offensive game. His playmaking and puck carrying has an undeniably positive effect on his team's offence when he's on the ice. He pushes the play in the right direction, and he can create offensive chances off the rush and in the offensive zone. It's hard to say how much of this is an actual improvement on the skills he already had last year vs just having more of a chance to do these things this year, but I do think at least half of it is from getting better.

I want to focus more on the rest of Bilecki's game, mainly his physical and defensive skills and consistency. It was the area where he stood to have the most room for improvement that could turn him into a star defenseman in junior, and potentially as a pro.

So far, it's still been a mixed bag. I saw one scout comment something like: "There are times when [Bilecki] is too nonchalant, but when he engages he's tough to get around," and I think that encapsulates him perfectly. There are two elements to that inconsistency – his mental focus, and his physical execution. As of now I think the former is the more concerning issue long term.

The way it usually manifests, from what I've seen, is that you'll see his positioning start to wander, and he doesn't see or remember to pick up what should be his man in the defensive coverage. So when the puck gets past him to that man, he's not in position to intercept or knock the pass away, or stick/bodycheck him, or do anything to stop him from taking a shot or setting up a more dangerous scoring chance.

I want to stress that this is not something that Bilecki does all the time, or even most of the time. It's something that happens occasionally, maybe a couple of times per game. This isn't an issue that's uncommon for junior defenseman, but it's not necessarily the kind of thing where you can just expect it to go away as Bilecki gets older, more experienced, more developed, and better. Some guys never see improvements in this area. I can't say this for sure, because he did have this issue last year too when he was playing more limited minutes, but I think he has gotten better at this considering it doesn't seem to happen more often in a game despite him playing double the minutes.

Bilecki is still getting played on the penalty kill, for example, even if it's not on the top unit. He's also one of their go-to defenders in defensive situations when trying to hold a lead late in the game. Not that Kitchener is a very deep team in terms of defensemen, but I'd still say he's arguably their best defenseman in terms of defensive impacts alone. It's not like any of the others don't have their own warts and consistency issues without the puck.

The other consistency issue I mentioned was Bilecki's physical execution. This is more where he tries to make a defensive play but he isn't able to create the outcome he wanted (turnover, steal, pin the puck carrier on the boards, etc). This almost entirely manifests in situations where he just loses a physical battle, especially along the boards.

Now, I'm much less concerned about this than I am with the mental focus part. First, I mentioned he already has good physical foundation for his size. He has a good frame at 6'2", but he has a lot of potential to fill out more and add more muscle so he can be stronger on his feet and in those physical battles along the boards, in front of his net, and so on. He'll throw a hit but bounce off bigger opponents, or engage in a close-quarters battle along the boards and be the one knocked off his feet. Again, there is no guarantee he will see that kind of physical development... Topi Niemela was a painful lesson of that. But I think he has a higher floor and likelihood of raising it by already having a larger frame.

The reason why it took me an extra week to write this report on Bilecki is because I wanted to see more of a sample size of his defensive game. I'll say that in his first 1.5 to 2 games back in the OHL this year, I thought he was awful. I'd never seen him look so bad even when watching him last season. This is where I do think he's had to adjust to having to play a lot more minutes with a lot more pressure as his team's top all-situations defenseman. His consistency issues, in both regards, already look a lot better now than they did at the start of the year. So the fact that he's looking more consistent in that bigger role with more minutes and responsibilities is itself a good sign of overall improvements, in my opinion! His potential as a top-four defenseman in the NHL remains alive!

Thanks for reading!

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