The Leafs Have Messed Up Drafting For Twenty Years

This is part two of my analysis of the NHL Entry Draft and how the Leafs have managed to shoot themselves in the foot year after year. This will be strictly a statistic post. Read it and enjoy (or cry into your pillow)...

1991 - Leafs to pick 3rd overall
No picks

Back in 1989 the Leafs traded their first round pick in 1991 to the New Jersey Devils for Tom Kurvers. That pick would end up being the third overall pick in the draft.
The Devils would use that pick to draft Scott Niedermeyer.

NOTE: The Leafs first pick in the 1991 draft was the third pick of the third round. They drafted Yanic Perrault

1992 - Leafs to pick 5th overall
8- Brandon Convery
23 Grant Marshall

Leafs traded the 5th pick to the Islanders for the 8th overall and the 32nd overall picks.
That 5th overall pick would become Darius Kasparitis.
Leafs would package that 32nd overall pick with the 53rd and 97th overall picks in a trade to Washington for the 23rd overall pick and the 95th overall pick.

1993 - Leafs to pick 19th overall
12-Kenny Jonsson
19- Landon Wilson

Leafs traded Grant Fuhr, and a fifth round pick in 1995 to Buffalo for Dave Andreychuk, Darren Puppa, and the 12th overall pick in the 1993 draft.

NOTE: The Leafs drafted twice in the first round and didn't draft again until the 5th round 19th pick.


1994 - Leafs to pick 22nd overall
16-Eric Fichaud

Flyers originally had 10th overall. Traded it to Nordiques in Lindros blockbuster.
Lindros for Ron Hextall, Peter Forsberg, Steve Duchesne, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, 1993 first round pick (10th overall) and future considerations (Chris Simon, 1994 10th overall pick)

The Leafs then traded for that 10th overall pick. They would trade Wendel Clark, Sylvain Lefebvre, Landon Wilson, 1994 first round 22 to Quebec for Mats Sundin, Garth Butcher, Todd Warriner, and the 10th overall pick

The Leafs then traded that 10th overall pick and Rob Pearson to the Capitals for Mike Ridley and a first round pick (16th overall) where the Leafs drafted Eric Fichaud. The Capitals used that 10th overall pick to select Nolan Baumgartner.

1995 - Leafs to pick 15th overall
15- Jeff Ware

1996 - Leafs to pick 15th overall
No picks

Leafs traded the 15th overall pick, a 1997 second round pick (30th overall), 1996 fourth round pick (84th overall) to Flyers for Dmitry Yushkevich and the 50th overall pick. Flyers used the 15th overall to take Dainius Zubrus.

1997 - Leafs to pick 4th overall
No picks

Leafs traded the 4th overall pick, Darby Hendrickson, Sean Haggerty and Kenny Jonsson to the New York Islanders for Wendel Clark, Mathieu Schneider and D.J. Smith. The Islanders used the 4th overall pick to draft Roberto Luongo.

NOTE: Leafs first pick of the draft was in the 3rd round and they drafted Jeff Farkas.

1998 - Leafs to pick 8th overall
10-Nik Antropov

The Leafs originally had 8th pick. They traded the 8th overall pick and the 94th overall pick to Chicago for the 10th overall pick, the 69th overall pick and the 126th overall pick.

1999 - Leafs to pick 24th overall
24- Luca Cereda

2000 - Leafs to pick 24th overall
24- Brad Boyes

2001 - Leafs to pick 17th overall
17- Carlo Colaiacovo

NOTE: The Leafs would trade their 49th overall pick (2nd round) along with Adam Mair to the Los Angeles Kings for Aki Berg. The Kings would use the 49th pick to draft Mike Cammalleri. Yep... Aki Berg... Not only did we trade far too much for an absolutely horrible player, but to make matters worse the Kings used our pick to draft Mike Cammalleri... Amazing...

2002 - Leafs to pick 24th overall
24- Alex Steen

2003 - Leafs to pick 21st overall
No picks

Leafs traded Alyn McCauley, Brad Boyes and the 21st overall pick to San Jose Sharks for Owen Nolan. The sharks would trade that 21st overall pick to Boston and move up to 16th overall. The Bruins used the 21st overall pick to draft Mark Stuart.

2004 - Leafs to pick 24th overall
No picks

Leafs traded the 24th overall pick along with Maxim Kondratiev, Jarkko Immonen and a 2005 second round pick (40th overall) to the New York Rangers for Brian Leetch and the 113th overall pick.
The Rangers would trade that 24th overall pick to Calgary and move up to 19th overall. Calgary drafted Kris Chucko with the 24th pick.

NOTE: The Leafs first pick in the draft was 90th overall, which was in the third round. They drafted Justin Pogge.

2005 - Leafs to pick 21st overall
21- Tuukka Rask

2006 - Leafs to pick 13th overall
13- Jiri Tlusty

NOTE: Leafs would trade a third round pick (76th overall) to Chicago for a fourth round (99th overall) and the 111th overall picks. Chicago would draft Tony Lagerstrom with 76th pick. Leafs would draft James Reimer with 99th overall pick and Korbinian Holzer with 111th overall pick.

2007 - Leafs to pick 13th overall
No picks

Leafs traded the 13th overall pick along with the 44th overall pick and a 2009 fourth round pick (98th overall) to the San Jose Sharks for Vesa Toskala and Mark Bell.

San Jose would then trade the 13th overall pick, the 44th overall pick and the 87th overall pick to St Louis for 9th overall. Which they used to draft Logan Couture.
St. Louis used the 13th pick to draft Lars Eller.
The Leafs first draft pick was 74th overall. They drafted Dale Mitchell.

To the Leafs credit however, 7 months prior to the draft they traded Mikael Tellqvist to the Coyotes for Tyson Nash and a fourth round pick (99th overall). They used that pick to draft Matt Frattin.

2008 - Leafs to pick 7th overall
5 - Luke Schenn

The Leafs traded their 7th overall pick, a third round pick (68th overall), and a 2009 second round pick (37th overall) to the Islanders for the 5th overall pick. The Leafs used that pick to draft Luke Schenn.

The Leafs would trade their second round pick (38th overall) and Brendan Bell to Phoenix for Yanic Perrault and a fifth round pick (129th overall) ... Really? Whats the obsession with Perrault? ... The Coyotes would trade that pick to Nashville who drafted Roman Josi with it.

2009 - Leafs to pick 7th overall
7- Nazim Kadri

NOTE: Remember that really odd trade where the Leafs traded Richard Petiot to Tampa Bay for Olaf Kolzig, Jamie Heward, Andy Rogers and a fourth round pick and somehow the league let this trade through despite the fact that it was a salary drop? Funny because after quite a bit of work went into getting that fourth round pick, the Leafs never even used it. They were forced to forfeit the pick due to the "illegal contract signing" of Jonas Frogren. Glad that worked out for us.

2010 - Leafs to pick 2nd overall
No picks.

Leafs traded the 2nd overall pick along with the 2010 second round (32nd overall) and 2011 first round (which ended up becoming 9th overall - Dougie Hamilton) to Boston for Phil Kessel.

Once the Leafs started really sucking it up that season and Boston realized they'd get a pretty high draft they traded their own first round pick (15th overall), a 2011 third round pick (90th overall) and Dennis Wideman to Florida for Nathan Horton and Gregory Campbell.

Im still cool with the Kessel trade. He's a hell of a player but damn Boston overall won big time. They got Seguin but then they used their extra pick to get Horton out of Florida. Good going Boston... We'll get you back somehow though... Really soon... I just get this sinking feeling...

NOTE: The 2nd round pick the Leafs traded to Boston for Kessel had to be re-aquired by the Maple Leafs. In 2008 the Leafs traded that pick to Montreal for Mikhail Grabovski. Montreal then traded it to Chicago for Robert Lang. The Leafs then had to trade a 2011 second round pick (43rd overall) and a third round pick (69th overall) to get their original pick back from Chicago. I assume this is because Burke had ideas of making an offer sheet to Phil Kessel and you need your own original picks to make an offer sheet. Either way Montreal really got the worst of this exchange.

2011 - Leafs to pick 9th overall
22- Tyler Biggs
25- Stuart Percy

The Leafs got the 25th overall pick and a third round pick (85th overall) from the Flyers for Kris Versteeg

The Leafs also traded Tomas Kaberle to the Bruins for Joe Colborne, the 30th overall pick and a second round pick in 2012. The Leafs used the 30th overall and their own second round 39 to trade with the Ducks to jump up to 22 and draft Tyler Biggs.


HOWS THE DRAFT LOOKING FOR THE UPCOMING YEAR?

• The Leafs used that extra 2nd round pick they got from Boston to trade for John-Michael Liles.
• Back in 2010 they traded their 3rd round pick of 2012 for Sondre Olden.
• The Leafs traded their 4th round pick of the draft for David Steckel earlier this season.
• The Leafs have an extra 6th round pick from the Ducks in 2012 when they traded their 2011 6th round pick.
• The Leafs also had traded their 7th round pick to Calgary in 2009 but in 2011 receieved a 7th round pick from the Rangers for John Mitchell.

With all the flip flopping of draft picks, it's no wonder the Leafs haven't drafted a great player in the last twenty years. Ironically, any of the good players they did draft they ended up trading away before their talent had matured (ie Boyes, Rask etc). The NHL has a simple and effective formula in place. If you suck really bad, you get the best young player. Well the Leafs have sucked for a while now, but instead of drafting the best young player, they keep trading their picks for the Aki Berg's of the world.

Keep the picks, draft with them, and let the players delevop! Enough is enough!