Maple Leafs Prospect Report: Ben Danford and Victor Johansson

From July 27th to August 2nd, the United States held their annual World Junior Summer Showcase. It is a mini exhibition tournament that, traditionally, was held between Team USA, Sweden, and Finland. The USA would have split squads, and each country used the tournament to get a look at their top options for the next World Juniors. Starting last year, Canada joined as a participant for the same reason, and like Team USA had a split squad.

This tournament was of interest to me because two of Toronto's top defense prospects were participating for their respective countries: Ben Danford for Team Canada, and Victor Johansson for Team Sweden.

I watched all of the games they were involved in, so let's talk about how they looked.

Ben Danford

Danford is Toronto's second best prospect in their system, behind only Easton Cowan. He was the 31st overall pick back in the 2024 draft, with the reputation of being a strong defensive defenseman. I haven't written many prospect reports on him because he's honestly kind of boring to write about. Cowan has his point streak and flashy offensive highlights, while Danford was more of a little things king – and I know from posting some highlights on social media that people do not get excited about a smart and responsible defensive play.

So, going into this camp Danford will be a borderline guy to make Canada's final World Juniors roster. His competition will be other depth right handed defensemen like Charlie Elick, Harrison Brunicke, Spencer Gill and Henry Mews. Danford's roster usage reflected that:

• Game One (Canada split squad game): top pair on Team White, ahead of Elick
• Game Two (united Canada team vs Finland): third pair, behind Brunicke (top pair) and Elick (2nd pair) but ahead of Mews (7th defenseman) and Gill (not dressed)
• Game Three (united team vs Sweden): second pair, behind Gill (top pair) but ahead of Elick (3rd pair) and Mews (not dressed).
• Game Four (united team vs USA): top pair, ahead of Elick (2nd pair), Mews (3rd pair) and Gill (not dressed).

If you want to assign meaning to that, it would appear that Danford slowly won over more of a role from Canada's coaching and management over Elick and Mews. He may now be considered one of the top six guys they are looking at for the blueline.

Danford's play at the tournament was a good showcase of his strengths, and those strengths I think are why Canada may go with him as a third pairing guy. Elick may be bigger and more physical, but Danford is a better skater, I think better defensively, and is more reliable moving the puck. Mews may be a better puck mover and can put up points, but Danford is more safe and defensive. He just strikes the right balance for a depth guy.

Anyways, let's dig into how he looked. What always stands out to me about Danford is just how good of a skater is. He's smooth and fluid, but quick in his acceleration and decision making. He's constantly influencing plays by being always around the puck when his team is on defense. He's like a defensive Fraser Minten, doing so many good things that aren't noticed in flashy highlights and have no real stat that people can point at and marvel. But you watch him and just know that's he's good at what he does, and his tracking data looks superlative.

It's kind of hard finding spectacular defensive highlights because Danford makes puck carriers avoid him. He's not intimidating physically, but will throw hits and smother guys along the boards to kill their movement. He has a good stick, good positioning, good defensive instincts. You'll rarely see any big defensive gaffes from him – if someone gets by him, it's because they beat him rather than because he made a mistake.

Danford's play with the puck seems to have made some improvements from when he was drafted, but he hasn't fully figured everything out yet. He can make the simple passes to get the puck out and start a rush, but more dynamic and high skilled plays are beyond him for now.

You can see the instincts and decision making is there, the skill and execution just hasn't caught up. Danford will jump into plays, move intelligently around on the ice to give his teammates passing options. He'll see a passing lane and fire it cross ice, but his accuracy – while good – is not elite. He can hesitate with the puck for too long at times, but isn't prone to hair-tearing turnovers.

That mostly is what I think holds Danford back from being any kind of offensive contributor, but for driving transitions and help keeping the offense move in the right direction rather than being a broken link, he's solid and reliable. Funnily enough, while watching the games I noticed that he should have been given two secondary assists for starting a transition that led to a rush goal, but he was not given credit for either. That's where his offensive contributions are more likely to come from – just getting puck touches from his defense and quickly moving it to the forwards to finish the job.

Victor Johansson

Johansson has been a revelation, and he got shout outs from two prospect writers who were at the tournament. The first was Steve Ellis with Daily Faceoff:

#9 Victor Johansson, D (Toronto Maple Leafs): I’ve watched a lot of VJ over the last two years and it feels like he is coming into his own as a legit prospect. He has grown a few inches over the past year, and he has also learned to be more assertive. His offensive game has really blossomed at this tournament, and it should allow him to play a big role when the main event comes around in December.

The second was Chris Peters with Flo Hockey:

Perhaps one of the most pleasant surprises of this tournament, Johansson is 20 pounds heavier and a lot stronger than he was when Toronto picked him in the fourth round in 2024. On top of that, his offensive game has really come along, with solid hands and an ability to get pucks through. He has deft touch on the puck, making good passes and escaping pressure. Johansson also had several big hits, showing his willingness and eagerness to use his improved strength to make opposing forwards uncomfortable. He said he is motivated to not just be a good defenseman, but to be the best. There’s still a long way to go there, but how can you not like that motivation?

Johansson's chances of making Sweden's roster at the World Juniors is in a similar spot as Danford's. He won't be a top guy, but he has a real shot at being one of their depth guys. While he's a left handed shot, he played on the right side most of last season with his junior team, and on Sweden at the WJSS last week. Between that and his ability to play on both special teams, he is a very versatile player to carry because he can help in all situations and on both sides of the ice.

I have no real feel for what Sweden's thinking. They moved their defensive lines and usage around every single game. There was no same pairing, and no guy got the same role every game, including on special teams. They really wanted to find out who had chemistry together and how each of them looked in different special teams roles. Johansson's usage by game shows how he was bounced around:

• Game one: second pairing, left side
• Game two: third pairing, left side
• Game three: 7th defenseman
• Game four: top pairing, right side
• Game five: second pair, right side

Sweden brought eight defensemen to the WJSS. If you look at who played where over each of their five games, I would list the players they gave the biggest roles to overall were: Boumedienne is the lock, then Wallenius, Johansson, Ohrqvist and Freij in a big group, then a drop to Magnusson, Eliasson and Gustaffson. So as of now, I would guess that Johansson is in the top five, in a clear group over the remaining three. The thing I'm not sure about is if there are other top Swedish defensemen eligible for the WJC who just weren't at the tournament.

What did Johansson do to earn the praise of those two scouts, and seemingly put himself in a great position to make the World Junior roster? I think it comes down to how he is emerging as a truly versatile two-way defenseman.

He has made HUGE improvements offensively, exploding last year into one of the most productive defensemen in his league. In this tournament, he was second on the team and third overall in the tournament in points by defensemen with 1 goal and 2 assists in five games. He can quarterback a power play, but probably will never be a top unit guy at higher levels. He can dance along the blueline to keep the puck in and make plays to set up teammates for scoring chances.

Defensively, Johansson is not at Danford's level. But he can kill penalties, with the same caveat as with the power play. He can kill plays with aggressive physical checking against the rush and against the cycle in his own end. He plays with an edge, throws big hits but uses it (mostly) wisely, and can be a shit disturber too – while not losing his cool and taking dumb penalties because he got mad. He can get the puck back and transport it up the ice with his feet and passing.

None of these are at elite levels, except maybe his ability to drive transitions, but he's just so solid across the board at everything by now.

I'll wrap up about Johansson with a few notes on things that stood out the most as far as areas of improvement:

• His puck handling looks ridiculous now. Before, he'd rely on his feet/skating/feints to get past defenders, but now he was pulling off some ridiculous dekes that made me laugh out loud because I never saw him pull off anything like it last year – and he did it multiple times!
• He looks bigger and stronger. I'm not sure if he's taller, but I wouldn't be surprised if his height gets updated to 6'2" this year. I said it before, but for him the stronger and bigger he gets, the better his overall game will be. He has the instincts, he needs the physical tools to battle through so he can pull it off more often.
• One related thing to strength, his wrist shot definitely looks to have more velocity now, which I saw a couple of times even on missed shots but also on his one goal.

Some areas of concern I still have is mostly on Johansson's defensive consistency at this point. He can throw a great hit or erase a puck carrier on the boards, take the puck off him and push it up the ice and just look great. But a few times he had a spaced out moment or just lost coverage and didn't see an opponent had gotten behind him in the neutral zone, or he was just too passive defending the cycle when he could have gotten a stick into a passing lane or shoved a puck carrier against the boards to kill his movement.

Honestly, having watched both Danford and Johansson, I kept thinking that if you could combine the two of them you'd have one of the best defense prospects in the hockey world. That obviously can't happen, but a secondary thought that came from it was they could make for a complimentary pairing for the Leafs in a few years.

Thanks for reading!

I put a lot of work into my prospect articles here, both for the draft and Toronto's prospects. I do it as a fun hobby for me, and I'd probably do it in some capacity even if PPP completely ceased to exist. But if you like reading my work, some support would go a long way! I pay for a few streaming services (CHL, NCAA, USHL, the occasional TSN options for international tournaments that are broadcast) to be able to reliably watch these prospects in good quality streams. I also pay for some prospect-specific resources, such as tracking data and scouting reports from outlets like Elite Prospects, Future Considerations, McKeen's Hockey, The Athletic, and more.

Being able to get paid for this helps me dedicate more time and resources to it, rather than to second/third jobs. And whatever money I make here, a lot of I reinvest back into my prospect work through in those streaming and scouting services. Like I said, I'd be doing whatever I can afford for this anyway, so any financial help I get through this is greatly appreciated!