Kessel signs long term extension (8 yrs, 64M, 8M AAV)

[L K]

I'll take Kessel everyday and twice on Sunday, but if Burke had adjusted the trade to have that first pick be top 5 protected or something like that the Leafs would have been a billion times better off.

Would Boston have made the deal with Toronto if Burke insisted on that?

We've been over every aspect of the Kessel trade over the years in this forum, and the answer to that question is a resounding 'NO'.

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

As for that article.  Cox wrote an article less than a full month into the season calling it Kessel's worst year in the NHL.  He's a fool.  Nothing changes with that article.

And to me, Clarkson is so far away from a fair comparison that it isn't funny.  Kessel was going through a typical slump which his career has yet to avoid.  Clarkson has just regressed to his typical performance.  Clarkson had a stretch where he put up 40G 23A 63P in 100 GP from 2011-2012 + the first 20 games in 2013.  Outside of that stretch he has 60G 55A 115P in 362GP.

Clarkson will likely have a better stretch of hockey than 8 points in 36 games, but we are extremely unlikely to get remotely close to him even being a 20 goal scorer.

No-one seems to bank on Kulemin being a 30 goal scorer because he did it once.  From the last 21 games of 2009-2010 to the 2010-2011 season Kulemin had a stretch of 35G 37A 72P in 103GP.  Aberrations happen.  Clarkson is an aberration that got grossly overpaid for doing so.

Kessel was a goal-scorer who was still developing and Cox just wrote a standard stupid piece.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I'll take Kessel everyday and twice on Sunday, but if Burke had adjusted the trade to have that first pick be top 5 protected or something like that the Leafs would have been a billion times better off.

Would Boston have made the deal with Toronto if Burke insisted on that?

We've been over every aspect of the Kessel trade over the years in this forum, and the answer to that question is a resounding 'NO'.

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

As for that article.  Cox wrote an article less than a full month into the season calling it Kessel's worst year in the NHL.  He's a fool.  Nothing changes with that article.

And to me, Clarkson is so far away from a fair comparison that it isn't funny.  Kessel was going through a typical slump which his career has yet to avoid.  Clarkson has just regressed to his typical performance.  Clarkson had a stretch where he put up 40G 23A 63P in 100 GP from 2011-2012 + the first 20 games in 2013.  Outside of that stretch he has 60G 55A 115P in 362GP.

Clarkson will likely have a better stretch of hockey than 8 points in 36 games, but we are extremely unlikely to get remotely close to him even being a 20 goal scorer.

No-one seems to bank on Kulemin being a 30 goal scorer because he did it once.  From the last 21 games of 2009-2010 to the 2010-2011 season Kulemin had a stretch of 35G 37A 72P in 103GP.  Aberrations happen.  Clarkson is an aberration that got grossly overpaid for doing so.

Kessel was a goal-scorer who was still developing and Cox just wrote a standard stupid piece.

This is what I was getting at with the headline - the Clarkson vs Kessel comparison.

 

[Bullfrog]

There are some decent points in the article, but it's overall intent is somewhat strange. It's a lot of talk to basically compare the two. And the comparison is basically "Kessel is now better than when he first signed his deal, so maybe, hopefully Clarkson might get better too."

 

[Deebo]

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

I thought your post implied that you thought Burke could have built top 5 protection into the deal but chose not to.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

I thought your post implied that you thought Burke could have built top 5 protection into the deal but chose not to.

Maybe I just made this up to make myself feel better, but I could have sworn Chiarreli later implied that he wouldn't have made the deal if the pick was protected.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

There are some decent points in the article, but it's overall intent is somewhat strange. It's a lot of talk to basically compare the two. And the comparison is basically "Kessel is now better than when he first signed his deal, so maybe, hopefully Clarkson might get better too."

The way I read his article was "I was wrong about Kessel a year ago therefore all of you might be wrong about Clarkson right now". That doesn't really take into consideration though that it was mostly just the MSM that was talking about trading Kessel last year (Cox, Feschuk, Simmons) and it's mostly just been the MSM that's trying to make Clarkson not look like a complete bust right now.

 

[Corn Flake]

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

I thought your post implied that you thought Burke could have built top 5 protection into the deal but chose not to.

Maybe I just made this up to make myself feel better, but I could have sworn Chiarreli later implied that he wouldn't have made the deal if the pick was protected.

Pretty sure I remember that being said as well.  It was in the context of him talking about how they had projected where the Leafs would finish that year and felt it was likely going to be a lottery pick.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

I thought your post implied that you thought Burke could have built top 5 protection into the deal but chose not to.

Maybe I just made this up to make myself feel better, but I could have sworn Chiarreli later implied that he wouldn't have made the deal if the pick was protected.

Pretty sure I remember that being said as well.  It was in the context of him talking about how they had projected where the Leafs would finish that year and felt it was likely going to be a lottery pick.

If it was protected couldn't they have waited for an offer sheet or something?

 

[Deebo]

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

I thought your post implied that you thought Burke could have built top 5 protection into the deal but chose not to.

Maybe I just made this up to make myself feel better, but I could have sworn Chiarreli later implied that he wouldn't have made the deal if the pick was protected.

Pretty sure I remember that being said as well.  It was in the context of him talking about how they had projected where the Leafs would finish that year and felt it was likely going to be a lottery pick.

If it was protected couldn't they have waited for an offer sheet or something?

I think the offersheet compensation at Kessel's contract level was a 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

Say it was top 5 protected and Toronto drafted Seguin, the 2012 pick is likely surrendered in the deal instead, which means no Morgan Rielly.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Say it was top 5 protected and Toronto drafted Seguin, the 2012 pick is likely surrendered in the deal instead, which means no Morgan Rielly.

With respect to Rielly (and assuming the hypothetical Leafs finished in the same spot), I'd take Seguin over him every day of the week.

 

[Deebo]

Say it was top 5 protected and Toronto drafted Seguin, the 2012 pick is likely surrendered in the deal instead, which means no Morgan Rielly.

With respect to Rielly (and assuming the hypothetical Leafs finished in the same spot), I'd take Seguin over him every day of the week.

Yeah that's probably the way I'd go to but the point was if it was top 5 protected, we wouldn't simply be adding Seguin to the existing roster.

 

[Deebo]

Kessel was named 2nd star of the week and month today.

 

[L K]

No.  The correct answer to that discussion is, we don't know and will never know.  But it's pointless to get into an argument over it.

I thought your post implied that you thought Burke could have built top 5 protection into the deal but chose not to.

Partially yes and partially no.  I don't think Burke ever tried to build protection into the pick.  I know Chiarelli has made comments before about not wanting protection on the picks, but those were comments made after the fact.  To say that he would have still done the deal with top-5 protection in place would have been throwing Burke under the bus for taking a worse deal than necessary.  Hockey GMs don't really do that so I personally choose to take those comments with a grain of salt.

 

[Kin]

Say it was top 5 protected and Toronto drafted Seguin, the 2012 pick is likely surrendered in the deal instead, which means no Morgan Rielly.

With respect to Rielly (and assuming the hypothetical Leafs finished in the same spot), I'd take Seguin over him every day of the week.

Yeah that's probably the way I'd go to but the point was if it was top 5 protected, we wouldn't simply be adding Seguin to the existing roster.

I think the larger point there is the assumption about the hypothetical Leafs. Regardless, if the pick is protected  then all sorts of other things would probably shake out differently so it's probably a fool's errand to try and pinpoint any one in particular.

 

[Kin]

Partially yes and partially no.  I don't think Burke ever tried to build protection into the pick.  I know Chiarelli has made comments before about not wanting protection on the picks, but those were comments made after the fact.  To say that he would have still done the deal with top-5 protection in place would have been throwing Burke under the bus for taking a worse deal than necessary.  Hockey GMs don't really do that so I personally choose to take those comments with a grain of salt.

Not to mention, how often would a GM say "I'd have made a worse deal than the one I made"? Not all of them are relentless self-promoters but I doubt any of them want to chalk up their successes to dumb luck.

Anyways, isn't the "Chiarelli would have never made the trade without the protection" almost more damaging to Burke's reputation? I mean, if that's true then it means that Chiarelli valued the possibility that the Leafs pick would be a very high one to a pretty serious degree and Burke still ignored the fact that the flaws of the roster were pretty visible to anyone who looked at it(for instance, the two goalies the team went to camp with were a Swedish rookie who'd never played a game and Vesa Toskala who'd put up a .891 SV% the year before).

I know Burke says that the possibility of giving up Hall or Seguin were discussed and they went ahead with the trade anyway but I don't see how someone can at once say that Burke couldn't have built protection into the draft picks and couldn't have foreseen the team finishing as badly as it did.

 

[Deebo]

Regardless, if the pick is protected  then all sorts of other things would probably shake out differently so it's probably a fool's errand to try and pinpoint any one in particular.

Yeah, that's sort of what I was trying to say, I was only using Rielly as example.

 

[losveratos]

Maybe I'm in the minority but I honestly wouldn't undo that trade as is at all. If we could have arranged it better... sure. But we can't know that for sure ever. So let's see the facts. We gave up Seguin, Hamilton and Knight.

Seguin is starting to get better but he's not as good as Kessel yet.
Hamilton is starting to look better though I don't think he will be the next Chara as Bruins fans say. Knight is a nobody really.

So would I trade an up and coming defenceman and a showing signs of being a true #1 center. Let's say with our current roster that would be Rielly and Kadri. But since Kadri isn't as good as Seguin let's add a 1st to even that out a bit. Or even change up Kadri to JVR.

Would I trade Kessel to receive those players? Nope... I think he's more valuable.

There are very very few players I'd rather have than kessel. Probably around 10 or so immediate yes's and about 5 that I'd have to really think about contract terms and age. Seguin and Hamilton aren't on my short list. Even combined together.

Add to all of this that even if we had those two guys last year and the years before from the moment we didn't make this epic trade.... we still wouldn't have made the playoffs. We made the playoffs on the back of Kessel's impressive 52 point season. (sorry 6:30am in korea)

Which means that all that experience as short as it was for our current roster would be null and void.

You need to remember all of these things don't happen in a vacuum. They're more like dominoes. If you change just a few pieces here and there the outcome can be incredibly different.

*As an added bonus.*

Think about if we had no Kessel leading the way, no playoffs... would Clarkson have signed with us over Edmonton's higher offer??

Maybe I have to rethink this whole thing >_>

Damn butterfly wings.

 

[Bullfrog]

Maybe I'm in the minority but I honestly wouldn't undo that trade as is at all. If we could have arranged it better... sure. But we can't know that for sure ever. So let's see the facts. We gave up Seguin, Hamilton and Knight.
...

I agree with you on the first part. I've always supported the trade and never thought it was a bad move.

I disagree with the second part. Giving up Seguin, Hamilton, and Knight is not a fact. The team gave up three high draft picks. That's a fact and I think it's an important one in any discussion of the trade.

 

[bustaheims]

I disagree with the second part. Giving up Seguin, Hamilton, and Knight is not a fact. The team gave up three high draft picks. That's a fact and I think it's an important one in any discussion of the trade.

It's an extremely important point. If the trade isn't made, that has ripple effects that impacts every team in the league to some extent. There's absolutely no guarantee the Leafs end up with the 2nd overall pick that year - never mind the fact that there's no way to know they would have drafted Knight with the 2nd rounder or Hamilton with the 1st rounder in the next draft, regardless of where it would have landed.

 

[losveratos]

Maybe I'm in the minority but I honestly wouldn't undo that trade as is at all. If we could have arranged it better... sure. But we can't know that for sure ever. So let's see the facts. We gave up Seguin, Hamilton and Knight.
...

I agree with you on the first part. I've always supported the trade and never thought it was a bad move.

I disagree with the second part. Giving up Seguin, Hamilton, and Knight is not a fact. The team gave up three high draft picks. That's a fact and I think it's an important one in any discussion of the trade.

Obviously... but when you get into that territory it's impossible to discuss.

Would we have done worse and have given up Hall?
Would we have chosen Seguin anyway?
Would we have taken Hamilton with our second 1st rnd pick?

And if you leave it at just 3 high draft picks... then yeah. I still do the trade because draftpicks will top out at Kessel in most cases and that's just a chance. A slim chance at that... but we'd have him already no chance and guaranteed. There's no discussion there.

You only have a discussion because Boston got to pick Seguin. That's all. If it was say Finn, Biggs, and Conner Brown or something.... who cares right?