Ah there we go now we have a hockey thread again. oh and by the way...
As Frederik Andersen walked down the hallway at the Verizon Center just after midnight Sunday, followed not far behind by Kasperi Kapanen, a thought occurred: Almost everything about this young and growing Maple Leafs team comes back to Phil Kessel.
And the influential and historical trade that has turned out to be enormous for both the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Maple Leafs.
The Penguins got the early benefit with a Stanley Cup win last June and a near Conn Smythe Trophy performance from Kessel.
The Leafs have been demonstrating the benefits, tangibly and otherwise, from the Kessel deal all season long — and some will tell you, last season as well.
Brendan Shanahan negotiated the Kessel acquisition with Jimmy Rutherford in June of 2015, and it was the first major trade he had ever completed. Lou Lamoriello had not yet been hired. Shanahan didn’t do the deal alone. He gathered his advisers, his scouts, both NHL and otherwise. He needed information and opinion. It was, I am told, a group effort putting the trade together, not very long after Dave Nonis had been fired as general manager of the Leafs.
The first part of the negotiation involved Kapanen, the overtime hero from Saturday night. Without him, the Leafs determined there would be no deal. Leafs had tagged him as the prospect they felt best fit their needs.
They also wanted Pittsburgh’s first-round pick from 2016.
One year after the big deal, at the end of Lamoriello’s first season as GM, he traded the Pittsburgh first round pick and the middle of three second round picks the Leafs owned (from deals done for Dion Phaneuf and Roman Polak/Nick Spaling) in order to acquire Andersen from Anaheim.
“We had the assets to make those decisions,” said Lamoriello, who compares the deal for Andersen to the deal he made in New Jersey for Cory Schneider. “It was the same situation as Vancouver. You can’t keep two goalies like that in salary cap times.”
But without the first round pick from the Kessel deal, there’s no Andersen deal. There’s no assets to trade. There’s no goalie.
So to start big picture, it’s now Kessel in exchange for Andersen and Kapanen. But there’s more involved here.
What the Leafs have to show right now for Kessel are Andersen, Kapanen, the Marlies leading scorer, Kerby Rychel (brought in for Scott Harrington), and maybe just an important, salary cap space, which enabled the Leafs to acquire defenceman Connor Carrick while eating the contract of Brooks Laich.
And here’s the topper, without the Kessel deal, Auston Matthews would likely be playing elsewhere in the NHL. Not starring in Toronto.
Why? Mike Babcock was coming in to coach the Leafs. Kessel was the most talented player on the roster. Both Shanahan and Babcock agreed that in order to begin anew, they needed fresh talent and more motivated talent at the top. Had Kessel stayed with Babcock, you think the Leafs would have won the draft lottery?
The last line is especially for you FishT
GO LEAFS GO
