A knock on the door changed Fraser Minten’s NHL career.
Late in the afternoon on trade deadline day last season, the centre was following moves around the NHL with his then-Toronto Marlies teammates before a game against the Providence Bruins. As the hours passed, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first pick in the 2022 NHL Draft remained with the organization. The deadline was close enough that his road trip roommate, Nick Abruzzese, convinced Minten to grab a pre-game nap unbothered.
“He was like, ‘You’re good, don’t worry about it,’” Minten said.
Not long after Minten closed his eyes, he awoke to Marlies assistant general manager Mike Dixon pounding on Minten’s hotel door.
Minten and Abruzzese shot up, muttering “Oh no” simultaneously. As Minten walked to the door, he opened Instagram and saw the Leafs had made a trade with the Boston Bruins.
“I thought, ‘OK, that’s me,’” he said.
One of the biggest deadline moves saw Minten shipped to Boston along with a first-round pick and a fourth-round pick for veteran defenceman Brandon Carlo.
Dixon told him to call Leafs general manager Brad Treliving. Despite being one of the Leafs’ most promising young players, Minten was to report to the Bruins’ AHL team in Providence.
“I went to the game and went to the other dressing room. It just … happened quick,” Minten told The Athletic in a lengthy one-on-one interview.
Minten’s ascent to the NHL has happened just as quickly. On a rebuilding Bruins team, Minten has become a full-time NHL player, grabbing the third-line centre role and not letting go.
On Saturday, Minten will play the Leafs in Toronto for the first time since the trade. His return brings his development back into focus, and begs questions about how different the Leafs might look had they not pulled off the trade right before the deadline.
Minten thought he’d be in Toronto for years.
The Leafs loved his intelligence and took him at No. 38 in the 2022 draft. His defensive reliability, 200-foot game and high character saw him crack the Leafs’ opening-night roster as a teenager in 2023. He was told repeatedly by many in the organization how much they valued him and saw him as a piece of their future. Minten became a full-time pro in 2024, scored his first NHL goal and earned the trust of Craig Berube, his second NHL head coach. It was easy to see Minten having a lengthy career in Toronto as a bottom-six centre and a leader in the dressing room.
“I want him here. He’s a type of player that we like. A lot,” Berube said in December 2024, when the debate over Minten’s future was whether he’d play in the NHL or AHL. “He talks, really, like a vet on the bench.”
Minten grew up quickly in Toronto. He bought a condo, but has since rented that condo out to his friend Easton Cowan. The two remain close and had plans to get together over the coming days, with Cowan texting Minten: “Dinner on him in Toronto and dinner on me in Boston.”
Yet plans change quickly in the NHL. Cowan was sent to the AHL’s Toronto Marlies on Wednesday and will likely not play against Minten and the Bruins.
Looking back, Minten doesn’t offer boring cliches about his former team, but rather an astute look at the challenges young players like him and Cowan endure.
“It’s a lot of highs and lows when you’re a young guy there,” Minten said. “The hardest thing to manage is trying to ignore that, but it’s really hard to do. You have a good game and it’s like really, really, really good. You go to the rink the next day, there’s 20 people who want to talk to you, all they’re doing is asking about how good you are, how good do you think you can be. And if you have a bad game, it’s radio silence. So you hear it almost more.
“In that aspect it’s difficult. In a market like Toronto, you can’t avoid it because you have to talk to the media. And even if you don’t go on your phone, don’t read what they say, you’re hearing it by what they say to you in person.”
Still, Minten is a realist when it comes to the Leafs’ perspective.
“There’s only so many years where you’re winning divisions and you have stars in their 26-to-31 age range. A 20-year-old kid at that point doesn’t really help your team in the playoffs usually. So you understand that if they want to fill a hole and don’t have a stacked prospect pool and you’re up near the top, then you’re probably the guy that other teams are wanting back if they’re going to fill that hole,” Minten said. “As much as people make it out to be like, ‘Oh, you’re part of the future,’ the goal is to win that year. Fans wouldn’t be the happiest if it was, ‘We’re going to be pretty good and just make the playoffs for 10 years in a row.’ They want to win. So that’s what the organization has to do.”
Minten arrived in Boston barely knowing anyone in the organization. He had to make new relationships late in a season. He struggled with the adjustments that come with playing in the United States for the first time; the changes to his finances and the visa requirements caught him off-guard.
But the most pressing challenge?
“Rebuilding your profile,” Minten said. “In Toronto, they’d seen me for three years, they scouted me, they thought highly of me. If you have a bad game, it’s like, ‘Oh, well, that’s not who Fraser is. He’s more than that.’ But if you’re in a new organization right away, maybe you have two bad games in your first five, it’s like ‘Well, maybe this guy isn’t all that.’ You have to rebuild your reputation from the ground up with lots of good days.”
After a strong AHL run to end the season and an excellent NHL training camp, Minten has done just that. He’s earned the trust of new Bruins head coach Marco Sturm with his reliable play, has become a mainstay on the Bruins’ penalty kill and recently enjoyed a few spins on the top line with David Pastrnak and Marat Khusnutdinov.
“His jump, his speed through the middle, he’s picked it up for awhile now,” Sturm said Wednesday of Minten’s promotion. “I’m like, OK, maybe I’m going to help (Pastrnak) too with more directness.”
Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov and Hampus Lindholm celebrate an overtime winner against the Buffalo Sabres. (Bob DeChiara / Imagn Images)
Could Minten have become that kind of player in Toronto? Someone who could play alongside the Leafs’ best, shedding the bottom-six tag that’s followed him since he was drafted?
As it stands, the Leafs have more than enough NHL forwards on their roster now. But they also struggled to fill their fourth-line centre role when Scott Laughton was injured. Perhaps having a player of Minten’s versatility could have benefited the Leafs, especially as he continues to grow into different roles and shows flashes of what might be a higher ceiling than anticipated. Hindsight is 20-20, but in an age when most top free agents are re-signing with their original teams, drafting and developing players remains a priority. The Leafs now find themselves without many possible difference-makers under 25.
Not that Minten is thinking about any of this. Asked if he wished things had turned out differently in Toronto, Minten veers positive.
“I’ve played every game so far and I’m earning more ice time,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to play in the NHL. If you would’ve named any of the 30 teams when I was a kid, I would have been so stoked to play there.”
Playing an average of 13:23 a night, Minten is thriving in Boston, comparable to how Cowan also thrived – admittedly in shorter spurts – during his 10-game stint with the Leafs.
“It’s different when you’re not worried about if you’re going to play again the next day. And obviously you shouldn’t be thinking about that, but it’s hard not to when you’re a competitive guy,” Minten said. “You know that if you have a good game you’ll be back in. If you don’t know that, you can grip it a little tight. Knowing (the Bruins) want to give me the opportunity to play here, it gives you the confidence to play free.”
Playing in the TD Garden — considered one of the league’s most boisterous buildings — also breeds confidence.
“We could be having a bad stretch where (opposition teams) are in our zone more, and then (defenceman Nikita Zadorov) will hit someone and the whole crowd’s in it right away,” Minten said. “They’re paying attention, they’re really invested in it. It’s nice to feel that energy rather than feel that tension that you sometimes feel. Here it’s supportive energy, positive energy. You play hard, you try your best and they can tell.”
Life in the NHL may have come at Minten fast. But after one of the most tumultuous turning points of his career, he’s learned to become a pro the Bruins are happy to have under their roof.
Once a crucial piece of the Leafs future, Minten won’t be arriving back in Toronto with a chip on his shoulder, but instead a smile on his face.
“It will be hard not to look over (at his former Leafs teammates) and smile, and laugh,” Minten said. “I’m excited to get out there and compete.”