from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

The Leafs started the draft by going small with London Knights forward Mitch Marner at No. 4 overall, a marvellously skilled youngster who desperately wanted to play for his hometown Leafs. NHL Central Scouting lists him at five-foot-11 and 160 pounds, and that bureau’s boss, Danny Marr, is a stickler for accuracy on such things.

That said, Marner said himself at the end of OHL playoffs he was more like 150 pounds. The Leafs hope he will be Patrick Kane and he might be. Lean and light and shifty.

That wasn’t small enough, however, for the new-age Toronto organization, which traded down to add picks and used one of them to select Long Islander Jeremy Bracco of the U.S. National Team development program in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The kid can dish, and he’s elusive, which he better be since he comes in around five-foot-nine and maybe 170 pounds. Bracco’s dad and uncle were goalies, he’s named after Jeremy Roenick and he broke a bunch of assist records for the U.S. program, so he’s all about skill.

Some saw him as a first-rounder, but the Leafs got him 61st, at the end of the second round. He is supposed to go to Boston College, but the OHL Kitchener Rangers own his rights and are desperately hoping he chooses to come north instead.

When you combine the selections of Marner and Bracco, highly skilled players who won’t be punching anybody in the face anytime soon, it’s symbolic of the type of thinking that’s suddenly popular in the Leaf front office.

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