Even Toronto Maple Leafs Haters Have to Give It Up for Petr Mrazek Trade

The Toronto Maple Leafs had a pretty underwhelming draft this year, at least in terms of entertainment value.

The other day I came across a guy on Twitter who – and I’m paraphrasing – said that he took the day off work, ditched his buddies and bought beer in order to watch the draft, and was going to lose it if the Toronto Maple Leafs traded their pick instead of making it.

Which is exactly what happened.

So shout out to that guy for – one assumes – causing the internet outage that prevented us, until now, from talking on here about the draft. Which, I think I mentioned, from a Leafs perspective, was pretty boring.

The Toronto Maple Leafs NHL Draft – Friday

The draft itself was lots of fun, as teams insanely over-thought the process and let the best player fall to fourth overall as a gift for Seattle. It just wasn’t super entertaining if you’re a Leafs fan.

If you were watching for three hours to see who the Leafs were going to take, it was extremely disappointing to see them trade the pick away and not even get anyone back for it.  As far as excitement goes it was a huge downer.

However, from the perspective of the Toronto Maple Leafs, it’s a trade so good you just hope the NHL doesn’t botch the trade call or something and give Chicago time to think on it some more.

The Leafs made a really smart move by trading down to save something close to $9 million real dollars and 2 years of a nearly $4 million cap hit. The difference between pick 25 and pick 38 is minuscule, and the Leafs just had to wait 12 hours to pick the player they wanted anyways.

I’m honestly beyond trying to figure out how someone could complain about this trade, other than having watched the draft and being annoyed about it.  If the Leafs paid the pick straight up, instead of just moving back, I could see the complaints, but even then, $4 million in cap juice will help you way more this season than a 25th overall draft pick.

In light of the trade, it was instructive to watch the responses. It seems to me that hockey recently has gotten a lot like politics, with people choosing sides and acting like anyone who doesn’t agree with them is totally kooky. It’s dumb and annoying, but you can’t deny it happens.

So, the Mrazek trade goes down, and immediately the disingenuous nonsense takes begin:

This tweet is so typical of politics, in which a talking head with a big following gives a very specific crowd exactly what they want, and nuance, context, or intelligent analysis be damned. (Note that I’m sorry for picking on Sid Seixeiro, who I like and respect, but I could have picked any of a dozen similar tweets, but he’s a super-huge celebrity millionaire and he can take it).

In reality, the Senators put together a package of multiple assets that included the 7th overall pick and taking on $6.5 million dollars in both real money and cap space, while the Leafs were given a very nice gift.

The Leafs moved back 13 spots, picked the exact same player they would have anyways,  all the while saving a crap-load of money and cap space. Unless you are so far down the rabbit hole of just hating Kyle Dubas and everything he does because one day a while back you decided to make that a part of your identity for some reason, then you are probably OK with this self-evidently good move.

If you want to retroactively criticize the Leafs for signing a goalie who had good stats, for an amount everyone pretty much agreed was reasonable, because it worked out so poorly, go nuts. At least you can point to something tangible to complain about.

In my opinion, if the only thing you pay is the perception that you traded a first round pick when that is in no way the case, then you probably did all right. The Leafs are getting ripped by people who would find a way to complain about anything they do.

Sometimes those people are right, but once they start making  tenuous comparisons and grasping at straws, its hard to take their complaints very seriously. It’s OK to admit the Leafs made a good move, even if you don’t like what they’ve been doing in general.

I mean, I personally like it, but I think it’s pretty normal to be fed up after six straight first round losses, especially when it’s by a team who insists on doing things differently. So I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who is sick of the Kyle Dubas era their opinion, I’d simply ask them to not comparing the seventh overall pick to moving back a few spots and getting the same guy.

The Mrazek deal is pretty much impossible to criticize. It was a very light price to get out of a contract and will make the rest of the off-season much more beneficial to the Leafs than it otherwise may have been.

Anyways, the Toronto Maple Leafs also eventually drafted a player with the pick, Fraser Minten, and he sounds pretty great, but when it comes to the draft I pretty much know the first ten guys and that’s it. I hope its a good pick, but I wouldn’t have had a strong reaction about anyone available at that point.  More analysis to follow!