The Toronto Maple Leafs have knocked several draft picks out of the park. Auston Matthews in 2016 is the most obvious one. Mitch Marner in 2015, William Nylander in 2014, and even Morgan Rielly in 2012 have all been savvy picks.
But there’s one pick that no one talks about. This was a third-round pick in the 2013 NHL Draft that flew under the radar. In fact, it flew under several teams’ radars.
I’m talking about Carter Verhaeghe. Plenty has been written about Verhaeghe being one of those picks that got away for the Maple Leafs. But then again, teams don’t necessarily view third-rounders as impact players.
Every now and then, a third or even fourth-rounder emerges as a premier player. For instance, Brad Marchand was a third-round pick. He turned into the Boston Bruins' captain and a key cog in the Florida Panthers' Stanley Cup run this past season.
As for Verhaeghe, he was shipped to the New York Islanders in 2015 for Michael Grabner. The Leafs sent five players to the Isles for Grabner. The other players were Christopher Gibson, Tom Nilsson, Taylor Beck, and Matt Finn; not exactly a king’s ransom.
Gibson played all of 16 NHL games. Nilsson never made it to the NHL. He played 44 games with the Marlies in 2014-15. Beck suited up for 92 NHL Games, scoring 23 points. Finn never made it to the NHL, either. He appeared in 28 games with the Marlies in 2014-15.
As for Grabner, he played one season in Toronto. He suited up for 80 games, scoring nine goals and 18 points. He departed via free agency to the New York Rangers, putting up 40 and 31 points in parts of two seasons there.
This trade would have been a wash if not for Verhaeghe. The fact that he’s turned into a top-six forward and a two-time Stanley Cup winner makes the Grabner trade one of the most unusual ones in both Islanders and Maple Leafs history.
Verhaghe, of course, would not find success in Long Island. He was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he reached the NHL. The Lightning allowed Verhaeghe to walk. So, he signed as a free agent with the Florida Panthers in 2020.
The rest is history.
What if Maple Leafs had kept Verhaeghe?
It’s tough to envision that Carter Verhaeghe would have been a highly valuable prospect at the time of the Michael Grabner trade. The Maple Leafs dealt him as a throw-in in the deal. The Islanders didn’t think much of him. The Lightning gave him a shot and let him walk for nothing.
So, missing on Verhaeghe is ultimately in the Maple Leafs, Islanders, and Lightning. That’s three organizations that failed to see his value. Perhaps it was the Panthers’ player development system that saw something in him and built it up.
Perhaps it was just fate that allowed Verhaeghe to develop his skills and reach his ceiling. That ceiling has resulted in Verhaeghe playing 359 games, scoring 138 goals, and 289 points with the Panthers.
If the Leafs had somehow kept Verhaeghe and developed his skills as the Panthers did, the Leafs could have had a solid top-six forward for the better part of a decade. He could have been one of the pieces that might have put the Leafs over the top, for instance, during the 2021 bubble playoffs.
Of course, that’s just a what-if scenario that belongs in a parallel universe.