When Brian Burke was first hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs on November 29, 2008, he claimed that he had a plan for the club to immediately be competitive. His first major move was when he traded three draft picks for Boston Bruins winger Phil Kessel. There has been a lot of press about the deal, and below I will give my ‘two cents’ about it.
In my opinion, this has to go down as one of the most lop-sided trades in the recent history of the NHL. When the deal actually occurred, fans were excited because the Leafs had acquired a perennial sniper in Phil Kessel. First off, Kessel missed his first month of the season rehabilitating a shoulder injury. Kessel has had a history of injuries, especially in the shoulder region. This alone is a huge risk for any person, especially for a 23 year old NHL player.
Brian Burke essentially traded an important piece of the Maple Leafs future in this trade. Toronto hasn’t made the playoffs in the post-lockout era, and this trade was supposed to turn things around for the Buds. The complete opposite happened, and as we all know, the Leafs finished second last in the NHL last season. This all meant that Boston would use the Leafs pick to choose second in the upcoming draft.
Many thought that the Bruins would falter when they gave up Kessel and didn’t receive any immediate NHL talent, but they did make it to the second round of the playoffs. Boston used the pick to draft Toronto native Tyler Seguin, who was the OHL player of the year.
Many people only look at this deal comparing the results of Phil Kessel and Tyler Seguin. In essence, there is actually so much more to this deal. Boston used its second draft pick from Toronto to choose Jared Knight from London in the OHL. The Michigan native scored 36 goals in 63 games last season. Who knows how the Leafs will finish this season. In any case, Boston is likely to get another top-15 prospect in this year’s draft. But that’s not all they acquired from Toronto.
On draft day 2010, Boston acquired Nathan Horton from the Florida Panthers for Dennis Wideman and their own first round pick. In actuality, the Maple Leafs allowed the Bruins to make this deal. Since Toronto gave Boston their second overall pick, the Bruins had the leverage to trade their own first round pick, which was the 15th overall pick for NHL talent.
Horton, who was the third overall pick in the 2003 draft, has scored 20 or more goals in his past five seasons, and is well on his way for a banner year this year in Beantown.
In Leafland, we have seen many similar trades go down. Toronto has repeatedly tried to impress their fan base by trading their young prospects for supposedly good players. Remember Tuukka Rask? The Leafs traded Rask, their first round pick in the 2005 draft for Andrew Raycroft. I don’t need to explain how bad this trade worked out for Toronto, but let’s just say if they still had Rask, Boston wouldn’t have been able to draft Tyler Seguin.
From all of these points, it could basically be argued that the Leafs traded Tyler Seguin, Jared Knight, a top 15 2011 prospect and Nathan Horton (well kind of, but it really gave the Bruins a chance to acquire him) for Phil Kessel. Or in other words, the Leafs acquired Kessel, a former first rounder, for three first round picks and a second round pick.
Does this seem even? To quote Borat, “Not so much!”
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