The Toronto Maple Leafs and Anaheim Ducks Trade History
Over the Toronto Maple Leafs 103 year history, many good and bad trades have been made.
In this series, I’ll be taking a look back at the good, the bad, and the ugly from this century-long history of deals that the Leafs have with each franchise in the NHL. Beginning with the Anaheim Ducks today, and ending with the Winnipeg Jets, I’ll be breaking down the most important deals the Toronto Maple Leafs have ever made with each franchise.
It’s unfortunate we begin with the Anaheim Ducks, to say the least.
Coming into the league in 1993 as the Mighty Ducks, it seems every trade the Leafs have ever made with the Anaheim franchise has ended up heavily in the favour of the Ducks a handful of years later.
In fact, some of Toronto’s worst trades over the past decade have been with Anaheim, usually taking place on the draft day floor.
Let’s kick this off with a less stressful trade, looking back at the most recent deal the Leafs have made with the Anaheim Ducks.
The Most Recent Trade
Date: December 10, 2018
Leafs Acquire: Steven Oleksy
Ducks Acquire: Adam Cracknell
Nothing like a quality minor league swap.
Back in December 2018, the Marlies were stacked to the brim with offensive talent. Their roster featured the likes of Dmytro Timashov, Pierre Engvall, Jeremy Bracco, Trevor Moore, and multiple other high-end AHL forwards, but the defensive depth was significantly lacking.
On the right side of the blueline, Toronto had a rotation of Timothy Liljegren, Vincent LoVerde, Frank Corrado, and Jordan Subban, nowhere near the quality of their forward group.
So, on December 10, Marlies GM Laurence Gilman swung a deal with the Ducks, sending Adam Cracknell over to San Diego for Steve Oleksy.
At the time of the deal, Cracknell had played in just 14 games for the Marlies due to injury, though he had scored 10 points in that time. Coming back the other way, Oleksy was coming back to a Marlies organization he had already played in at the end of the 2016/17 season. He had appeared in 15 games for San Diego.
The fallout? The Ducks certainly got the higher quality player, as Cracknell would become one of their premier AHL forwards, scoring 28 points in 32 games with the Gulls and earning a two-game call-up to the NHL.
Oleksy, meanwhile, was a sturdy veteran presence, rotating into the Marlies blueline for 23 games in the regular season.
Both teams got what they were looking for out of this minor-league deal, but as we’ll see in some of the following trades, not all deals the Ducks and the Leafs have made were as harmless as their most recent transaction.
The First Trade
Date: September 28, 1994
Leafs Acquire: Terry Yake
Mighty Ducks Acquire: David Sacco
Toronto didn’t make their first trade with the Ducks franchise until their inaugural season was finished. When they finally did make that first deal, it was one of some significant substance.
Anaheim GM Jack Ferreira was in the midst of shipping out a bulk of the original Mighty Ducks in favour of a younger roster, and the Leafs looked to take advantage of this by acquiring their leading scorer Terry Yake.
Yake, 25 at the time of the trade, was coming off of a 52 point season with the Mighty Ducks, his second consecutive 20 goal campaign.
Being sent the other way was prospect Dave Sacco, also 25. Sacco had played just nine games in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization after a trip to the 1994 Olympics with the American squad.
He had torn up college hockey with Boston University, scoring the second-most points in program history before joining the Leafs system.
Dave’s older brother Joe had already been claimed by the Mighty Ducks in the expansion draft from Toronto the year prior, where he had a solid 37 points in 84 games.
Both players proceeded to flop in their new destinations. Yake played a disappointing 19 games in a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, scoring just five points and was loaned to the IHL before leaving as a free agent in 1996.
Sacco primarily played in the IHL in the 1994/95 season, making a brief appearance with the NHL club. The following season he made the Mighty Ducks in a partial capacity, playing 23 games and scoring 14 points before finding himself back in the AHL.
Sacco was out of hockey entirely by 1998, while Yake resurrected his NHL career in 1997 with St. Louis before going on to an eight-year career in Germany and Switzerland.
What was a promising first trade between these two franchises turned out to bust for both, but this next trade certainly looks to be paying dividends for both teams both now, and in the coming seasons.
The Biggest Trade
Date: June 20, 2016
Leafs Acquire: Frederik Andersen
Ducks Acquire: 2016 1st (Sam Steel), 2017 2nd (Max Comtois)
There were a couple of candidates for the biggest deal between Anaheim and Toronto, but it’s tough to go against this one.
The trade marked the turning of a page for the Toronto Maple Leafs organization. They were in need of a starting goaltender and they went out and got the number one option available. Toronto was no longer in rebuilding mode, they were making the transition into a playoff contender.
In Andersen, they were getting a 26 year old with a strong three-season track record with the Ducks.
Splitting the net with John Gibson (we’ll talk about him again later) the previous season, Andersen had put up a .919 save percentage in 43 games, winning 22. As an RFA.
Toronto immediately signed the Danish netminder to a five-year, $25 million contract, banking on him as their starter as they looked to transition into a Cup contender.
We all know how the Toronto Maple Leafs side of things has played out. Andersen came in and has started 60+ games in every season in Toronto, and was on pace to do so again this year prior to the league postponement.
He’s performed up to the price the Leafs paid to get him, both in acquisition cost and the contract they signed him to.
Where this trade really gets interesting is the two draft picks Toronto sent the other way. Sam Steel and Maxime Comtois both project as important pieces for Anaheim in the coming years.
Steel has already become a mainstay in the Ducks lineup, scoring 22 points in 66 games this year and will continue to get more ice-time from here.
Comtois split time between the NHL and AHL this season, but it’s expected that he plays the full year for Anaheim next season. Both Steel and Comtois are expected to feature in the Ducks top nine once they get back to contention.
Overall, this has turned out to be a very even trade. Though the Francois Beauchemin deal was a tough contender, Andersen has been one of the Toronto Maple Leafs most important players each year since he was acquired.
You just can’t say the same about any of Beauchemin, Joffrey Lupul, or Jake Gardiner, giving the edge to the Andersen trade for me.
The Worst Fleecing
Date: June 24, 2011
Leafs Acquire: 22nd Overall Pick (Tyler Biggs)
Ducks Acquire: 30th Overall Pick (Rickard Rakell), 39th Overall Pick (John Gibson)
Yeah, this is a rough one.
On Draft Day 2011, Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke was looking to add truculence to the Leafs prospect pool. With two late firsts and an early second-round pick, Toronto was shaped up to have a promising draft if they could hit on their picks.
Oh, boy did they ever miss.
With picks 25 and 30 in hand, Burke paid the hefty price of the 39th pick to move up eight slots to select USNTDP winger Tyler Biggs. Listed at 6-foot-2 and over 200 pounds, this was exactly the hard-working, physical player Toronto wanted to add to the organization.
Anaheim meanwhile, were targeting more skill and welcomed the opportunity to add another high selection. Moving back to 30, they took Swedish centre Rickard Rakell out of Plymouth in the OHL, who was coming off of a near point per game season.
On Day Two, the Ducks snagged the consensus top goaltender in the draft, John Gibson, with the 39th pick they got from Toronto when Nashville went off the board to take Magnus Hellberg one pick before them.
Now, we all know how this has played out. Biggs never found his footing at the pro level, topping out at nine points in his first AHL season before ending up in the ECHL shortly thereafter.
Rakell and Gibson, on the other hand, have become two significant pieces for the Ducks
. Gibson has emerged as one of the best netminders in the NHL, the main reason why Anaheim was able to part with Frederik Andersen in that 2016 deal with Toronto.
Rakell has also carved out a solid career to this point, peaking at 69 points in 2017/18 and has become a mainstay in Anaheim’s top six.
To add insult to injury, Biggs is the highest drafted player out of the 2011 Draft to not appear in an NHL game.
As incredible as it is, the Toronto Maple Leafs have gifted the Ducks most of their NHL roster of the past decade. It all began with this first Draft Day deal on June 24, but the very next day the Leafs traded out of the sixth round in a late-round swap that saw Anaheim land Josh Manson and Toronto select Ryan Rupert.
When the Leafs were in desperate need of a centre back in 2013, they sent the picks which would be used to select Marcus Pettersson and Ondrej Kase to Anaheim for Peter Holland as well.
dark. Next. Which Leafs are Tradeable and Which are Untouchable?
Next time in the Toronto Maple Leafs trading history series, I’ll take a look at the infrequent history of deals between Toronto and the Winnipeg/Arizona franchise.