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Sometimes a prospect doesn’t develop the way you hope for. Topi Niemelä is a very good example of someone who improves well enough to catch a lot of attention, but who stagnated in terms of growth and improvements to the point his hype never matched the reality of who he was as a player. Another example of that, in my opinion, is Moldenhauer.

Nicholas Moldenhauer
Vitals

Age as of July 1
21.1

Position
RW/C

Height
5’10”

Weight (lbs)
170

Shoots
R

Draft Year
2022

Draft Number
95

The Player

Moldenhauer had a decent amount of hype as a prospect when he was drafted. He was coming off a pretty strong USHL season for the Chicago Steel, and followed it up with a great season as one of the league’s best point producers. That helped him earn a commitment to one of the top programs in the NCAA, the University of Michigan. He was also named in one of Toronto’s development camps as being a standout, by people like me, other Toronto writers, and the Leafs’ own staff.

In Moldenhauer’s two college seasons, however, things haven’t gone well. His first season was just okay. In his freshman season, he had 21 points in 41 games playing in mostly a depth role, with minimal time on the powerplay. But from what I saw, he was very much a passenger rather than having much impact on the play himself. Looking at his impacts, he was average/meh.

This year, Moldenhauer had a big opportunity. The majority of Michigan’s top forwards from the previous year had turned pro, and he had a great opportunity to carve out a spot for himself in their top six. Instead, he struggled even worse than he did in his freshman season. His impacts got worse, except his defense, but he looked invisible for long stretches of the season. His production also tanked, with only 3 goals and 10 points in 29 games. If you want to take something positive from it, he definitely missed time from injury and maybe he was playing through something most of the year, and by the end of the year he played his best hockey in the last few games. It was the only time he looked that good and strung together multiple good games in a row.

#Leafs prospect Nick Moldenhauer scores shortside for the second game in a row. After struggling all season this year, it looks like he may be finding his game again. His last two games have been his best all year.

— Acceptable Treliving (@brigstew.bsky.social) 2025-03-09T00:09:43.146ZThe Votes

The votes were pretty consistent. Only three people did not rank for him at all, including myself. Of those who did rank him, all but one were between 19 and 25. On a pretty shallow list of eligible players when it comes to quality prospects, that’s pretty damning. I’m guessing it’s because he did have SOME hype in the past, and there’s hope he can still find his game.

Voter
Vote

Cathy
19

Brigstew
NA

Species
19

Hardev
24

shinson93
23

Cameron
25

Zone Entry
20

Svalbard38
NA

dhammm
NA

adam
16

Weighted Average
22.4

Highest Vote
16

Lowest Vote
25

Personally, I didn’t rank him because he’s a struggling college player. That kind of guy wouldn’t even get an AHL contract. He has two years to dramatically improve his game to get to the point that he can even get signed to an ELC or AHL deal. That’s how far he has to go. I couldn’t tell you a single thing about him from the last two years that’s particularly positive, it gives me the same vibes as Niemelä in terms of him just not improving in that time. When that happens multiple years in a row and he’s now in his 20’s? I am not clinging to any hope anymore. To steal a line I saw from Cathy, he needs a big leap now… steps won’t cut it anymore.

The Opinions

Here’s what the other voters thought about him:

Cameron: I really hoped that last year was just a fluke and that Moldenhauer would improve this season. Instead, it got worse. Hoping he has a breakout season this season, otherwise I don’t see a path to the NHL in his future. Not giving up on him yet but definitely need to see big improvements this fall.Shinson93: Certainly was another tough year for Moldenhauer. Again it seemed like several younger guys moved past him to take his ice time. He’s a smart player (Academic All BigTen) and hard worker, but doesn’t always show that fight to give a little more. I want him to be more noticeable without the puck, being more assertive getting to scoring positions but also in his own zone breaking up plays. I ranked him based on the idea that he’s still a year behind in his development, but he’s running out of time to take a step.Svalbard38: I went back and forth about ranking Moldenhauer. He only turned 21 this off-season, and even though he had a disappointing year, a better performance this season could put him back on the radar. That’s pretty close to what I thought about Moldenhauer this time last year though, and he didn’t take the step I wanted to see. I’m not closing the door on him but I’m firmly into believe-it-when-I-see-it territory with Moldenhauer.dhammm: In my mind Moldenhauer is a once-credible prospect who has struggled to gain his footing after making a jump up in league difficulty, and the fact that scouts are only confirming that his apparent struggles are real means I don’t feel pressured to read his lax statlines creatively. He’ll need an explosive year to make me excited about him again, but a few NCAA prospects have overcome bland freshman and sophomore years before to become good pros after graduation.Cathy: Okay, why did I rank him? Or a better question might be how. I started him off as a guy who I ranked in the past, had him very low, and I kept finding players to put below him. For me, this list in this year, is almost entirely full of people I don’t think will touch the edges of the NHL. I think he goes ahead of Niemelä, for example, simply because he has some small slice of time to put a game together. I doubt it happens, though.

#Leafs prospect Nick Moldenhauer with the short-side snipe in Michigan’s 6-5 overtime loss to open their conference playoffs. It was only his second goal and 9th point in 28 games this season as he’s struggled mightily in his sophomore season. Hopefully this gets him going.

— Acceptable Treliving (@brigstew.bsky.social) 2025-03-08T16:29:33.724Z

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