The Kessel Trade, Part ??

Alright, so I had my fair share of personal posts, and shameless self promoting for most of my posts so far, so its back to a legitimate opinionated piece.

I really wanted to talk about the Kovalchuk retirement-thing, but I really feel that there's too much fog covering the thought process there to really make a fair assessment.  So I'm doing this instead.

The question of "Who won the Kessel trade?" question has been a popular question amongst hockey fans for quite some time.  And for the most part, it seemed like most fans could agree that Seguin was the better investment and best fit for his team than Kessel is in Toronto.  But then, just after Boston was able to oust Toronto in the playoffs, Seguin faltered, and ended up being shipped out of town before really making an impact in Boston.  So the question is in full debate mode once again, and I decided to have my take.

Lets first look back at the day of the trade, and the pieces that were moved.  Toronto got Phil Kessel for essentially 2 First Round picks, and 1 Second Round pick.  Thats a pretty lofty price, but immediately with that trade, and the acquisitions Toronto made prior with Komisarek, Gustavsson, and Orr, Toronto looked legitimate.

While Phil Kessel had a good year, scoring over 30 goals, the Maple Leafs come dead last in the east.  They claim 2nd in the draft lottery, giving Boston (already a good team) the 2nd overall pick, which turns out to be Seguin.  Right now, this trade must blow for the Maple Leafs. If they were going to pay that much and suck, they might as well have waited and have the "next big name" all to themselves.

After a strong Toronto start, they, along with Kessel, start to suck again.  Seguin starts slow, but develops into a useful player.  Not the star everyone hoped for, but at the time much better than Kessel. But it was Boston's turn to make a trading error, receiving Kaberle from Toronto for Joe Colborne and a couple of high picks.  So the Kessel trade is essentially now "Kessel, Colborne and a slightly downgraded 1st round pick for Seguin, Kaberle, and 9th Overall pick (Dougie Hamilton)".  At that point, looking up to now, Toronto won the trade.  Kaberle is worthless in that deal, and Hamilton has star potential but is a huge liability on defence, on a team that's cup window does't have room for project players.  But back to that later.

At the end of that season, Toronto again misses the playoffs, but Kessel regains his star form.  Seguin, while on a division-winning team, is scratched for most of the early post season.  But once he starts playing playoff hockey, he comes out with a bang, carrying them over Tampa Bay.  Unfortunately for Seguin, he was again pretty useless during the cup finals when they won over Vancouver.  Still, he was just a rookie, but the jury was still out on him.

The next season, Kessel gets 82 points in 82 games.  Seguin gets 67 points in 82, slightly lower, but he's still younger and on a team with more offensive options.  Hamilton gets 72 points (as a Dman mind you) in Junior.  Right now, Boston is slightly winning the trade.

This last season, Kessel gets 52 points in 48 games, while Seguin can only manage 32.  Kessel also leads the team to their first playoff appearance in what seems like forever.  They were eventually taken out in a 1st Round epic against Boston, where Seguin was nowhere to be found.  Hamilton played well for Boston for his experience, but was clearly still a liability for the Bruins at his age.  At this point, if nothing happened for the rest of the summer, I'd say Boston won the trade on their future potential.  However, something did happen, Seguin was traded.

So if you look at the trade for the assets that the teams have now, it would be Kessel and Colbourne, for Hamilton, Loui Eriksson, Joe Morrow and Matt Fraser.

Numbers time:

Salary crunch: TOR: $6million   BOS: 8million

Kessel: 504 games, 379 points, good leader on upstart, young team with potential, dependable
Colbourne: 16 games, 6 points, solid AHL player with potential

Eriksson: 501 games, 357 points, might have better numbers in Boston, equally comparable to Kessel
Hamilton: 42 games, 16 points, lots of potential to be a star D, but needs work.
Fraser: 13 games, 3 points, fair potential, but nothing stands out about him
Morrow: 66 games (AHL only), 19 points, too early to tell, but probably potential 2nd string Dman.

The only other pieces involved with this deal (to the extent of my knowledge) is Tyler Biggs for Toronto, and Reilly Smith for Boston.  But it should be noted that while Boston got Eriksson, they lost Rich Peverley to Dallas as part of that deal, so the Kessel-Eriksson comparison is a little hindered by that, for what the teams had to get/give up to get there.

So after the big trade this summer, and all of the statistics mentioned, who really wins the Kessel trade?

Kessel is a core piece to the Toronto puzzle that is finally starting to take shape, while Eriksson is added as a fitting replacement for Seguin.  Without looking at the rest of the teams, I think Boston has received more "bang for their buck" versus Toronto, and I think they have some pieces that will be great for the future build up of this team.  So Boston is the long-term winner of this deal, for now.  But in the now, for next season, Toronto is most certainly the winner.  It will take time for Eriksson to adjust to the Boston system, and for their prospects to grow.  Kessel is part of a core group in Toronto ready to make the playoffs once again, and have received help from other acquisitions this summer, most notably David Clarkson.  Phil Kessel is also probably the best player mentioned anywhere as part of this deal, and Toronto still has him, so thats also a sign of winning.

So I guess it depends what your definition of "winning a trade" is.  But, even though I'd say Boston "has the best chance" to be long-term winners of this deal, the future is too uncertain.  Right now, Toronto is the better team with Kessel than Boston was with/without Seguin.  So Toronto got it right after all.

But of course, this is just my view on it.