Feb 7, 2015; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel (81) goes to take a shot against the Edmonton Oilers at the Air Canada Centre. Toronto defeated Edmonton 5-1. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
Torrin Batchelor
So the Phil Kessel situation is finally resolved.
I won’t lie, when the news first broke I yelled, I panicked, I briefly thought about finally abandoning the ship we call the Maple Leafs. This was a top tier ELITE goal scorer, in his prime, under contract and we threw him away for peanuts?
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Then I calmed down. I did what we constantly have to do as Leaf fans and took a step back and reassessed. The Toronto Maple Leafs needed to trade Phil Kessel to send a message to the rest of the team, to change the leadership core and to kick-start the rebuild because like it or not Phil “The Thrill” Kessel has been the face of our team for years now.
No one was going to believe the Leafs were actually committed to a rebuild had Kessel stayed on the roster for much longer. The thing is, all 29 other GM’s knew the Leafs needed to trade Kessel. All 29 other GM’s knew the Leafs had an inexperienced management team that needed to get Kessel out the door sooner than later so they could move on – so all 29 other teams low balled them.
The upsetting thing is not what we actually received for Kessel, I’ll take a closer look in two seconds, it’s that we didn’t get the MASSIVE package the media had been promising us for weeks.
Kasperi Kapanen was ranked by many as a top ten talent going into last season’s draft, but fell to the Penguins at 22nd overall. He is only four months older than 2015 top ten prospect Mikko Rantanen and by all accounts has some elite level skill and speed. He can skate like the wind, has a pretty quick and accurate wrist shot and elite hockey IQ – does that sound like any other prospects the Leafs have brought in since Mark Hunter and Kyke Dubas came on board?
Kapanen fits the type of player the Leafs are trying to build up their organization with, and that’s perfect. He has a bit more of a physical dimension to his game then many of our prospects and slips securely into the No.3 slot on our top prospect ranks behind Mitch Marner and William Nylander.
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Scott Harrington is another player with ties to Hunter and the London Knights organization. He brings a stay-at-home, stand up character and leadership element to our D-prospect group that we were lacking. Percy, Nilsson, Finn are all puck movers and Loov although he’s a physical beast and locker room jokester isn’t captain material. Scott Harrington is the kind of guy to lead guys into trenches and come out the otherwise with ten stitches and some missing teeth but also the “W”.
First round picks never hurt and getting a 3rd as well is a nice touch. The Shanaplan still very much revolved around getting Mark Hunter as many picks as possible to work his magic with.
Nick Spaling is just a salary dump, but he is the kind of high-character, hard-working grinder that Toronto fans love to fall madly in love with and he will be a fan favourite sooner than later.
The only piece of this deal that isn’t to like is retaining 15% of Kessel’s cap hit for the last 7 years of his deal. That’s 1.2M of dead cap for the next 7 years. It doesn’t seem like a big deal now, and probably won’t truly affect the Leafs until years five, six and seven when they are hopefully starting to contend and need to spend as much as possible.
Also giving Pittsburgh back the 2nd in 2016 that we got for Daniel Winnik kind of sucks, but with the Leafs resigning Winnik yesterday makes it a free pick anyways.
Basically, the Leafs got the best return they had on the table and recouped three grade “A” pieces back in Harrington, 2016 1st and Kapanen.
At this point in the rebuild the Leafs need as many high end prospects as possible. This is a good start, also gives us 6.8M in extra cap space to take back bad contracts in Phaneuf+Lupul+Bozak deals to maximize our return for them.
Next: Tim Chiasson's Take