It took almost 2 full years to determine the who the Maple Leafs gave up for Phil Kessel and during that time fans suffered through considerable angst. That turned out to be Tyler Seguin, Jared Knight and Dougie Hamilton. No question that was a high price to pay.
It only took 4 months to determine what players the Leafs would get in exchange for Tomas Kaberle - but if you think the price for Kessel was high then the price for Kaberle was scandalous. After all Kaberle is clearly in a decline and 9 years older than Kessel. Kessel still has his best year in front of him.
So the return for Kaberle (along with a 2nd round pick) which only happened with some nifty dealing by Brian Burke was Joe Colborne, Tyler Biggs, and John-Michael Liles. That's a lot of useful bodies.
I think some people are scratching their heads about the point of moving up 8 spots in the draft for a second round pick. You wonder if the players the Leafs had selected with the 22nd and 25th picks would not have still be available at 25th and 30th. You have no way of knowing for sure. One thing about Burke - when he locks in on a player he does what ever it takes to land him.
No comments:
Post a Comment