I love trades and I love rankings, and I’m a Maple Leafs fan so it goes without saying that I love misery. For today’s post, I figured I’d combine all of those things into one piece, with a ranking of all the times that the Maple Leafs have traded away a first-round pick. After all, it feels like a timely topic right about now.
After some digging, I found there have been 29 separate trades in Leafs history in which they’ve traded away a total of 31 first-round picks, so I did what any normal person would do and ranked them all, from the ones that turned out best to worst.
Two things surprised me about that. First, 29 seems low. The Leafs seem to do this kind of thing a lot. I was pretty sure Brad Treliving had traded away 29 firsts on his own, although I guess the math doesn’t quite work out on that one. Give him time, guys, he’s working on it.
The second surprise was the best-to-worst part, since that implies that some of these trades have worked out in the Leafs’ favor. I didn’t think they’d all be disasters, mind you, because some of these are going to be boring draft floor swaps that nobody even remembers. But finding actual wins? Impossible. Or so I thought.
It goes without saying that we're doing this with total benefit of hindsight, which isn't fair to the GMs but too bad for them. Let's go on this journey together...
I’m not sure the NHL has a weirder annual award than the Mark Messier Leadership Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Leadership.
It’s not quite a slam dunk, because the Lady Byng exists. But at least that award has been around for a century, and is voted on by a pool of writers who’ll always get it right because democracy never fails. The Mark Messier is a relatively new award that, as far as anyone can tell, just goes to whoever Mark Messier himself deems worthy. What’s the criteria? Nobody really knows. Leadership, apparently.
The award started off in 2006 as a monthly honor, before quickly being retconned into a more traditional annual award. That version has been handed out 18 times, with no repeat winners, because it’s just really hard to be a good leader more than once in your career. And while some of those winners are guys with reputations as legitimately great leaders like Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron and Jonathan Toews, other winners haven’t held up quite as well. We got a reminder of that this week, when the reigning Messier winner was traded after the team that had been trying to dump him for months threatened to waive him. You know, typical leader stuff.
So today, let’s look back at that list of 18 winners, and remember X times that the award didn’t turn out to be a great omen for the future.
The Senators host the Maple Leafs tonight, the second of four meetings in a season that marks 20 years since the rivalry's last playoff series. It's fair to say that the Battle of Ontario isn't what it used to be, dampened by extended stretches of futility by Toronto and now Ottawa. In fact, if you're a new or younger fan, you might now remember much of it at all.
That's a shame, because there was a time when the Battle of Ontario used to be one of the sport's greatest rivalries. From 2000 until 2004, the two teams met in the playoffs four times in five years to go along with dozens of regular season matchups that always seemed to produce some sort of controversy or bad blood. Fans ate it up, and then took the arguments to the water cooler, the sports bar, the random street corner, and even the family dinner table.
One thing we didn't do: Post about it on social media. It didn't exist back then. And that leads to the question: Which of the rivalry's moments would have blown up social media? To figure it out, Sean McIndoe and Ian Mendes put their heads together and came up with a Top 20 ranking of Battle of Ontario moments from 2000 to 2004, as viewed from the (very different) Toronto and Ottawa perspectives.
On this week's episode of The Athletic Hockey Show:
- What if Mats Sundin joins the Senators?
- The playoff races head down the stretch
- Has this year been an argument for or against a play-in round?
- Are the NHL awards already settled?
- Granger has some fun playoff prop bets
- Who has the record for worst +/- in a win?
- New goalie skate tech, the wildest final day in NHL history and lots more...
The Athletic Hockey Show runs most days of the week during the season, with Ian and I hosting every Thursday. There are two versions of each episode available:
- An ad-free version for subscribers that you can find here
- An ad-supported version you can get for free wherever you normally find your podcasts (like Apple or Spotify)
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and after the year we’ve all been through, it presents a nice chance to refocus on what really matters by asking ourselves important questions like “Am I currently going out with someone” and “What was going out like, I can’t remember” and “Wait, does this person live with me because that would explain who’s been eating all my food.”
Then you could break up with them. That part’s optional, and not necessarily recommended based on your personal circumstances. But it’s how a lot of relationships end, both in the world of romance and in the NHL. This is called tying your sports story into a current event. I am a professional writer.
Years ago, I put together a list of ten of NHL history’s ugliest player/team breakups. It wasn’t an exhaustive list, because it couldn’t be, because this sport is constantly tossing new examples onto the pile. Just recently, we’ve seen the Pierre-Luc Dubois drama play out in Columbus, and it may not be long before the Patrik Laine sequel gets good. We saw the end of long-term relationships like Zdeno Chara in Boston and Joe Thornton in San Jose. And we’re still not sure what exactly happened with John Chayka in Arizona. This league and its soap operas, am I right?
So today, let’s remember a few more bad breakups from NHL history. My first piece covered names like Patrick Roy, Dany Heatley, Eric Lindros and Pavel Bure, but we’ve got plenty more ground to cover. After all, it’s the NHL, where everything ends badly and nobody should ever get too attached.
Sergei Fedorov and the Red Wings, 2003
Happier times: Fedorov is one of the greatest players in Detroit history, a supremely skilled Russian star who won a Hart and two Selkes while providing the dominant two-way play that helped finally tip the Red Wings from regular season monsters to Stanley Cup champions.
But then: In 1998, after a lengthy RFA standoff that dragged well into the season, Fedorov signed an offer sheet with the Hurricanes that was ridiculously front-loaded with bonuses designed to make it unmatchable. The Wings matched anyway, and Fedorov stuck around for five more seasons, but a relationship that had been rocky from the start never fully recovered.
How it ended: Fedorov finally left for good in 2013, signing with the Ducks in free agency, and the bad feelings lingered for years. Even after his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame, the team still hasn’t retired his number. But time heals some wounds, and there have been recent signs of a thaw in the relationship, especially with Steve Yzerman running the Wings now. There’s even been talk of Fedorov joining the organization in some capacity.
What kind of breakup it was: The couple that’s always on the verge of breaking up but ends up holding on a lot longer than everyone thought before the inevitable final straw.
We’re a week into the season. How are you feeling about the all-Canadian schedule so far, Leafs fans?
I’m guessing you’re enjoying it, because right now it still feels new. Sure, there may come a point where seeing the same teams over and over starts to lose some lustre, and Leafs fans find themselves missing the occasional meeting with rivals like the Red Wings, Sabres or even the Bruins. But for now, it’s been pretty great.
So today, let’s remember some of the best and worst of the Leafs’ history in all-Canadian matchups. We’ll go through each of the six opponents in this year’s North Division, and come up with both the Leafs’ best win and worst loss against those teams.
These picks are subjective, obviously, and I’m sure a few of you will have your own picks for some of them. That’s half the fun, since we can use the comment section to Remember Some Games. But here are my picks for the best and worst of the Leafs against Canadian opponents.
Leafs vs. Senators
We’ll start with what’s probably the easiest team to find games for. The Leafs and Senators have both the least history (because it only dates back to 1992) and the most (because of all those Quinn-era playoff matchups), and plenty of it has been memorable.
Best win: Leafs 4, Senators 1 – April 20, 2004
There’s no shortage of candidates for the best game when you’re talking about an opponent you’re 4-0 against in the postseason, but I think this one is the clear winner. It wasn’t the closest game or even the most entertaining, but it’s the one that’s come to symbolize the pre-cap Battle of Ontario. Joe Nieuwendyk’s pair of softies turned what figured to be a tense Game 7 showdown into a relatively easy Leafs win, spelling the end of the Jacques Martin era in Ottawa. It remains the Leafs’ last playoff series win, against Ottawa or anyone else.
Worst loss: Senators 8, Leafs 0 – October 29, 2005
One of the weird postscripts to the four-part playoff arc was that while the two teams have never met in the postseason after the lockout, there was a period when the Senators would consistently embarrass the Leafs in regular season meetings. I went with this 8-0 rout in Toronto, but we could also go with a 7-0 loss in Ottawa a few months later, or a pair of 8-2 options. Did it erase the pain of losing four straight in the playoffs for Sens fans? Not really, but every little bit helps.
Other candidates: Any number of memorable playoff moments, including wins like the triple-OT Gary Roberts game, the 2002 Game 7, the comeback in Game 6 of that same series, or sudden death winners from Mats Sundin, Cory Cross, Stumpy Thomas. On the loss side of the ledger, there was a 5-0 blowout in the 2002 opener, and the NHL’s first-ever shootout defeat. There was that awful Bryan Berard game. And the rivalry has also given us memorable moments like the flu game, the fake stick throw, Chara vs. McCabe, and Tucker vs. the bench, plus a more recent memory in Auston Matthews’ record-breaking four-goal debut, which I’m going to just go ahead and say the Leafs must have won.
Leafs vs. Oilers
They’ve never met in the playoffs, but did almost pull off the biggest trade in sports history. They also may be the two most neurotic fan bases in the league, so hockey gods help us if they actually do get a postseason matchup this year.
Best win: Leafs 11, Oilers 9 – January 8, 1986
For pretty much all of the 1980s, the Oilers were good and the Leafs were awful and the games between them went pretty much exactly the way you’d expect them to. The decade saw the Oilers beat the Leafs by scores of 9-1, 8-3 (twice), 8-2, 9-2, 8-5, 9-5, 7-1 (twice) and 9-4. And in most of those games, you felt like Edmonton was going easy on them.
So it was a remarkable night in 1986 when the Leafs not only got a rare win against the Gretzky-era Oilers, but did it by beating them at their own game. In what still stands as the highest-scoring Leafs game ever (and just one goal away from the record for highest-scoring game in NHL history), the Leafs jumped out to a 3-0 lead and then went up and down the ice with a dynasty. Gretzky finished with six points, but the Leafs got three from Russ Courtnall, Steve Thomas and rookie Wendel Clark, and a four-goal night from Miro Frycer.
A personal note on this game: The kids in my school were losing their minds the next day. It was right up there with the discovery of the Super Mario warp trick, and met with just as much skepticism. Even at that young age, we knew not to believe in good things happening to the Leafs.
Worst loss: Oilers 7, Leafs 5 – December 18, 1991
We could pick any of those 1980s blowouts, but I’m going with an only slightly more recent option. In 1991, Cliff Fletcher had just arrived, and his first major blockbuster was a seven-player blockbuster with the Oilers that brought Grant Fuhr and Glenn Anderson to Toronto. This was the first game between the two teams after that deal, and a chance for the rebuilt Leafs to serve notice that they were for real. But then Fuhr got shelled, Vince Damphousse had two points in his return to Toronto, and Peter Ing didn’t just beat his former team, he earned one more point than Anderson while doing it.
Other candidates: The recent game where Kris Russell scored the winner into his own net and Nazem Kadri laughed at him. Wendel Clark’s four straight goals in 1996. It doesn’t count because it wasn’t a game, but we have to mention the Leafs “losing” the McDavid lottery to the Oilers on the final ball. And while the infamous waffle game didn’t come against the Oilers, they get partial credit because the guy who threw them was apparently wearing an old school Gretzky jersey.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- This week's CBA news was a good thing, but let's not celebrate yet
- I try to stay positive about this year's new rules
- An obscure player with lots of (Scrabble) points
- The month's three comedy stars
- And Survivor contestant Tom Laidlaw pranks the 1991 Kings, a team he was not on
That’s the big question in the NHL these days, and honestly, I have no idea. None. I know there are easy narratives we can grasp at – They’re not built for playoff hockey! They don’t want it bad enough! They haven’t had to face enough adversity! – but I think we all realize on some level that it’s nonsense. Teams that rack up 62 wins don’t suddenly become fatally flawed in the playoffs.
Except that yeah, the Lightning sure seem flawed. A month ago I wrote about pretty much this exact scenario, where the Lightning suffer through a shocking exit and we all race to slap an explanation on it. But even then, I was working under the assumption that a Lightning upset would feel like, well, an upset. That they’d run into a hot goalie or have a bunch of bad bounces or whatever. That’s not what’s happening. They’re getting their butts kicked. The Blue Jackets have been the better team since the first period of Game 1. This is some history-making madness.
So yeah, I’m as lost as you are. But the reality is that there’s a good chance that the series ends tonight, and the Lightning season will end without so much as a playoff win to their name. And they may not be alone – the 100-point Penguins are also staring down a sweep tonight. Those are two pretty good teams, and they might combine for zero wins in the postseason.
That’s hard to explain. But it’s not unprecedented. So today, let’s try to make Lightning fans feel better – or let’s face it, probably worse – by looking back at eight of the best regular season teams in NHL history who didn’t win a single playoff game.
The team: 1992-93 Chicago Blackhawks
The regular season: Under rookie head coach Darryl Sutter, the Hawks had one of the best regular seasons in franchise history. They finished the year with a record of 47-25-12, good for a conference-best 106 points that set up a first-round meeting with the 85-point Blues. Easy, right?
The disaster: Curtis Joseph has a weird tendency to show up in these stories. This one was the 24-year-old’s first time performing what would become his trademark move for the rest of the ’90s: pretty much single-handedly winning a playoff series.
After making 24 saves in a 4-3 win in Game 1, Joseph went on to shut out the Hawks in back-to-back games, making 81 saves in the process. That pushed the Hawks to the brink, and while Chicago would find the net again in Game 4, the Blues finished the job in overtime. That goal came with a bit of controversy, and an appropriately heated Ed Belfour meltdown.
The epilogue: This was the second stunning first-round exit in three years by the Hawks; they’d lost to the North Stars in six games in 1991. They’d followed that with a trip to the final in 1992, but there was no similar rebound here. The Hawks would win just three more rounds in 15 seasons until reemerging as Cup contenders in the Jonathan Toews/Patrick Kane era.
The team: The 1980-81 Canadiens
The regular season: By 1981, the Habs dynasty of the late-70s was essentially over. For the first time in five years, they hadn’t won the Cup in 1980, and key pieces like Scotty Bowman, Jacques Lemaire and Ken Dryden were gone. But they still had guys like Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson and Steve Shutt on a roster that featured seven Hall of Famers, and they rolled to a conference-best 103 points. That earned them an easy first-round matchup against a 74-point team that had never won a playoff game.
The disaster: That first-round opponent was the Edmonton Oilers, and they turned out to have a few Hall of Famers of their own. Even though they’d only won 29 of their 80 games during the season, the Oilers stunned the Canadiens by pumping home 15 goals in a three-game preliminary round sweep.
The epilogue: Those early-80s best-of-five openers were tricky – they also saw sweeps of 100-point teams like the 1982-83 Flyers, 1983-84 Sabres and 1983-84 Bruins.
As for the Canadiens, they finished first again in 1981-82, only to suffer yet another first-round upset, this time to the Nordiques in five. Montreal wouldn’t win another playoff round until Steve Penney showed up in 1984, and some other rookie goalie who arrived a year later helped them get back to winning Cups. And those upstart Oilers went on to win a few of their own.
I think there’s a good case to be made that Ottawa Senators fans just endured one of the most depressing trade deadlines in NHL history.
Ottawa ended up trading away three veterans, including the team’s most popular player in Mark Stone, plus their next two leading goal scorers in Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel. Just in terms of talent going out the door, the Senators’ 2019 deadline exodus is hard to match.
But that’s not what makes the weekend so depressing. Instead, it’s the context here that makes it all sting so much. The Senators wanted to re-sign Duchene and Stone, but apparently couldn’t get them to buy into the team’s long-term vision for a return to contention. Coming on the heels of the Erik Karlsson trade, it’s hard for fans to shake the feeling that their best players just don’t want to be there anymore. And so three more were traded away, leaving behind some good picks and prospects but also a husk of a roster that seems destined to finish dead last. And of course, the Sens can’t even look forward to the draft lottery, because they traded away their first-round pick for one of those players who just said goodbye.
So yeah … not fun. But we’re all about optimism around here, so let’s see if we can find some for Ottawa fans. I went back and looked at five other trade deadlines in modern NHL history that left fans feeling miserable, to see if we could find some small rays of positivity for the Senators.
This might feel like rock bottom in Ottawa. But it felt at least a little like that in these towns too, and maybe we can draw some lessons from that. Cheer up, Sens fans. There are brighter days ahead.
2013 Calgary Flames
The setup: The Flames were about to miss the playoffs for the fourth straight year and the team hadn’t won a round since their 2004 run to the final. For years, there had been rumors that the team would have no choice but to trade franchise icon Jarome Iginla. Year after year, the deadline would pass without a move, and with hope that Iginla could somehow lead the team on one more run at an elusive Cup. But with the Flames struggling and his contract expiring, the 2013 deadline really did feel like the time had come.
What happened: After nearly 17 years, Flames fans finally heard the news they’d been dreading: Iginla had been traded. And then, a few minutes later, they heard it again.
In one of the weirder deadline week moments in recent history, Iginla was reported to have been dealt to the Bruins, only to turn out to actually be headed to Pittsburgh. The deal ended up being Iginla for Kenny Agostino, Ben Hanowski and a first.
Why it hurt: Flames fans got to enjoy the gut punch of the first deal, followed by a momentary reprieve, and then a second uppercut. When the dust settled, the trade felt like the end of an era. And it really was – Iginla finished as the Flames’ career leader in just about every major scoring stat, but never did win that Stanley Cup.
To make matters worse, this is one of those deals that really didn’t work out for anyone in hindsight. Iginla and the Penguins ended up being swept by the Bruins in the playoffs. He’d bounce around three more teams in four years, missing the playoffs in each of his last three seasons. And the Flames didn’t really get anything out of the deal; Agostino and Hanowski didn’t contribute much and they used the first-round pick on Morgan Klimchuk.
In hindsight, both Iginla and the Flames waited too long to move on. You almost wonder if it wouldn’t have been better for everyone if he’d stuck around and just ended his career in Calgary.
But the good news is: The Flames struggled through one more miserable season, but were back in the playoffs by 2015, and even won a round. They haven’t won a playoff game since, but that should change this year. It’s been a long six years, but the Flames are contenders again. It can be done!
Sens fans optimism index: That’s … well, that’s not bad, I guess. But Senators fans are probably hoping to have more to look forward to than one playoff round win in the next five years or so. Let’s see if we can find a team that went on to win a Cup.
2000 Boston Bruins
The setup: Much like the Flames and Iginla, the Bruins were a bad team with an aging superstar running out of time to win a Cup. In this case, it was Ray Bourque, who was heading down the stretch on his 21st season in Boston. The Bruins had been reasonably good over the years, even winning a round in 1999. But the 1999-00 season had gone off the rails, and it was clear that a rebuild was on the way.
With Bourque nearing the end of his career, it was time for Bruins fans to consider the unthinkable: Watching him chase a Cup while wearing another team’s logo.
What happened: The rumor mill had Bourque staying east, with the Flyers emerging as the favorites. But in a mild surprise, the Bruins sent him to the Avalanche instead. Despite how you might remember it, Bourque didn’t go right out and win a Cup in Colorado that year. But he decided to come back for one final season, and this time he and the Avalanche went all the way, leading to the greatest Cup handoff in history.
Why it hurt: The Bruins didn’t get much out of the deal, although that wasn’t even really the point. Instead, it was about finding the right place for Bourque to chase his title. In that sense, the deal was a success, albeit a delayed one. But it was also an acknowledgement that an era was ending without a title in Boston. And while Bruins fans cheered Bourque on in Colorado, seeing him finally lift a Cup in another uniform was a bittersweet moment.
But the good news is: The Bruins did eventually recover and win that Stanley Cup, although it took 11 years to do it.
Sens fans optimism index: Guys, we’re trying to make Senators fans feel better here. Surely we can come up with a slightly better rebound story than one that takes over a decade. Come on, these folks are hurting here – let’s find them a team they can really look up to?
Easy. Wayne Gretzky being traded from the Oilers to the Kings in 1988. There’s really no debate. That one’s number one by a mile.
Cool, good post. See you in a few days.
(Editor’s note: Uh, Sean … we were kind of hoping for more than 40 words out of this one.)
Huh. OK. In that case, let’s up the degree of difficulty by changing the question around.
What’s the second most important trade in NHL history?
Now things get tougher, in large part because the Gretzky trade was such a game-changer that it overshadows everything else. That trade changed the league’s financial landscape, reset how hockey was viewed in the U.S. and is directly responsible for the existence of about a half-dozen of today’s teams. Forget the NHL, you could make a solid argument that it’s the most important trade in the history of sports.
So sure, the drop down to second place is going to be a big one. But that’s what makes the debate fun, because once you get past Gretzky, the field suddenly gets crowded.
Note that we’re not talking about the “biggest” trade, in terms of the number of players or even the sheer star power involved. What we’re looking for here is importance. That’s an admittedly fuzzy concept, but think of it this way: If you go back and undo the deal, how much of NHL history changes?
So with all due respect to Alexandre Daigle, let’s take some time to remember number two – or at least the contenders for that crown. Here are 10 possibilities that I think can make the strongest case.
The Next One arrives: Eric Lindros to the Flyers
The trade: On June 30, 1992, the Nordiques sent Eric Lindros to the Flyers for Peter Forsberg, Steve Duchesne, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, Kerry Huffman, Chris Simon, two first-round picks and $15,000,000.
The case for: Read that list of names again. Then remember that Lindros hadn’t played a single NHL game at this point. It was an almost unfathomably huge haul for one teenaged prospect – and it may not even have been the best deal the Nordiques could get, given that they preferred the Rangers’ offer.
At the time, Lindros was considered the best prospect to come into the league since Mario Lemieux, and maybe even the best ever. He never quite lived up to that hype in Philadelphia, but he did win a Hart Trophy and led the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final. Meanwhile, Forsberg became arguably the best player in the deal and helped the Nordiques win two Cups in Colorado.
The case against: Both Lindros and Forsberg had their careers shortened by injury, so the trade’s impact wasn’t quite what it could have been. Still, that feels like nitpicking.
Moose on the Loose: Mark Messier to the Rangers
The trade: On Oct. 4, 1991, the Oilers traded Mark Messier to the Rangers for Bernie Nicholls, Steven Rice, Louie DeBrusk and future considerations.
The case for: For better or worse, this trade defined the next decade and more for both teams. Against all odds, the Oilers had survived the Gretzky trade and won another Cup in 1990. But Messier’s exit signaled the true end of the dynasty and the Oilers’ new role as one of the NHL’s have-nots. (A point that was driven home when Nicholls initially refused to report.)
As for the Rangers, they watched Messier win the Hart while guiding them to the Presidents’ Trophy in his first season. But the big moment came in 1994, when they finally put an end to the “1940” chants by winning the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in over half a century. It was Messier who led them there, most memorably with his guaranteed win against the Devils. And it was Messier who was the one to receive the Cup handoff in front of a roaring MSG crowd.
Messier would go on to captain the Rangers until 2004, not counting the three years he took off from 1997 to 2000 to go do missionary work, and is often ranked as the greatest Ranger of all-time. And maybe even more importantly, Messier and the Rangers made the NHL seem cool and trendy for just about the first time ever.
The case against: New commissioner Gary Bettman decided that the Rangers’ win made for the perfect time for a lockout, and any momentum the NHL was riding was squandered. Rangers fans were too delirious to care, but this trade’s impact beyond New York and Edmonton didn’t end up being as big as it could have been.
With the hockey off-season staying quiet and the Toronto Blue Jays flatlining, the biggest news in Canadian pro sports continues to be the Toronto Raptors‘ recent blockbuster. By adding Kawhi Leonard, the team may have improved their chances of winning the Eastern Conference next year. But the deal came at a cost, with the popular DeMar DeRozan heading to San Antonio in the deal.
That’s a tough spot for an organization, because DeRozan didn’t want to be traded. He made that clear before the trade, and especially so in the days immediately after. Sports is a business, as we’re constantly reminded, but it’s difficult for a fan to see a popular player leave town against his will.
Every now and then, we see something similar in the NHL. Most big hockey deals are pulled off with at least some cooperation from the player, and some are outright forced by a star who wants to be elsewhere. But occasionally, a star is traded against his will. Here are eight times it happened, and how it worked out for everyone involved.
1. Wayne Gretzky, 1988
The player: Wayne Gretzky. You may have heard of him.
We may as well start with the obvious example of a player’s grief at being dealt. Gretzky’s press-conference breakdown, complete with his quip about how he’d “promised Mess I wouldn’t do this,” is burned into the memories of a generation of hockey fans.
The trade: The Oilers — or more specifically, owner Peter Pocklington — sent Gretzky to Los Angeles along with Mike Krushelnyski and Marty McSorley in exchange for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, three first-round picks and a truckload of cash.
How unhappy was he? That’s a matter of at least some debate; Pocklington would later infamously accuse Gretzky of shedding “crocodile tears” at the press conference. It’s true that by the time the deal was officially made, Gretzky wanted to go to L.A. — according to one version of the story, he was given the chance to back out of the move that morning and chose to go through with it. But all of that came after it had been made clear that Pocklington had been working on a trade for a while, and it’s hard to blame Gretzky for eventually going along with the inevitable.
How’d that work out for them? On the one hand, the trade was a disaster for the Oilers. Carson was good but lasted only one full season in Edmonton, Gelinas was just OK, and none of the three firsts turned into franchise players. Meanwhile, Gretzky won the Hart in his first year in L.A. and added three scoring titles.
On the other hand, the Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 1990, while Gretzky and the Kings never did combine for a championship. So who really won the trade? [Checks notes.] Right, the Kings won by a mile.
We’ll be back in Edmonton a little later in this piece, but for now let’s skip ahead a few decades to a different Canadian team…
The player: Subban had won the Norris in 2013 and been a finalist in 2015. But he was also carrying a $9-million cap hit, the highest of any defenceman in the league at the time, and had a no-trade clause that was days away from kicking in.
How unhappy was he? He certainly didn’t want to be moved — that’s why he’d negotiated that NTC. And he’d put down roots in Montreal, including making a $10-million donation to a local children’s hospital. He seemed to take the move personally, and earlier this week, he empathized with DeRozan’s situation.
How’d that work out for them? Habs fans will claim that it’s too soon to tell, and maybe it is. But in the two years since the deal, the Predators have been to a Stanley Cup final and won a Presidents’ Trophy, while the Canadiens haven’t won a round and are coming off a miserable season that has some calling for them to blow it up and start all over. Meanwhile, Subban just posted yet another Norris-caliber season, while Weber missed most of last year and will be out for the first half of this coming season.
We’ll just mark that down as “Advantage: Nashville” so far. But the good news for Montreal is that Weber still has eight years left on his deal, so there’s plenty of time to turn things around.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- Should we be mad about guys getting hurt while the NHL isn't at the Olympics?
- A simple request about a very old movie
- An obscure player who's record is safe after the Dion Phaneuf trade
- The week's three comedy stars
- And the YouTube section gets weird with a German pop song about loving ice hockey
The Toronto Maple Leafs are back in the playoffs. You may have missed it – it was a pretty small story that didn’t get much media attention. But it’s true. Tonight, the Leafs make their return to the post-season, facing the Washington Capitals in the opener of their first-round series.
So today, let’s mark the occasion by looking back on some of the Leafs’ best post-season moments of the last 30 years.
Yes, I can hear you now, mumbling a punchline about this being an awfully short list. And it’s true, the Leafs don’t exactly have the most distinguished track record of consistent post-season excellence. But they have had a few decent runs, more than enough to put together a top 10, even if we’re going to have to lean on a few distinct eras.
(Spoiler alert: There’s going to be a lot of 1993, and if you’re a Senators fan you should probably just hit the back button right now.)
To be clear, this is a list of the best Maple Leafs playoff games from the Toronto fan's perspective. But if you're one of those fans on the other side of the fence, don't worry – we'll be back next week with a top 10 list of the worst Leafs playoff games. By then, there's a good chance it will even have one or two Washington games on it.
But we'll save the misery for next week. For now, the Leafs and Capitals are tied and it's all about the good times. We'll start the countdown roughly 23 years ago…
No. 10: 1994 Western Conference semi-final, game six: Maple Leafs 3, Sharks 2 (OT)
The 1993–94 Leafs' playoff run has an odd legacy. It's one of their deepest in the last few decades, and featured several memorable moments. But it had the misfortune of coming directly after the 1992–93 season, so it's often remembered like a decent sequel that had no chance of living up to the original.
The second round of that 1994 playoffs served up a valuable lesson to Leafs fans who were starting to get a little cozy with playoff success: Beware the underdog. The Sharks had just pulled off a major upset over the Red Wings to win the first series in franchise history, and figured to be easy fodder for a veteran Leafs team. Instead, they took Toronto right to within one Johan Garpenlov crossbar of elimination.
A lucky Mike Gartner bank shot in sudden death extended the series, and the Leafs won game seven two nights later. Most playoff overtime wins are euphoria; this one was just relief.
No. 9: 2000 Eastern Conference quarter-final, game five: Maple Leafs 2, Senators 1 (OT)
The first playoff matchup in the Battle of Ontario seems almost quaint now. There was none of the bad blood or controversy that came to define the rivalry, and even diehard fans of both teams probably don't remember all that much about the six-game series.
But if there's an exception, it came in game five. The home team had held serve through the series, but the Senators were on the verge of stealing one, holding a 1–0 advantage in the dying minutes of what had been, in all honestly, a dreadfully dull game. That's when Steve Thomas scored late to tie it up, and the two teams proceeded to play a frantic overtime that went back-and-forth until Thomas ended it.
The Leafs finished things off in Ottawa in game six, with the last goal of Wendel Clark's career serving as the winner.
With less than a week to go before the playoffs start, there remains a good possibility that we’re going to see a series between the Maple Leafs and Senators. That would be a great matchup – one of the best possible – and would feature two underdog teams that few expected to be in the playoffs at all.
But more importantly, it would mark the resumption of the Battle of Ontario, the rivalry that dominated the province for a good stretch of the pre-lockout years, and continued to simmer after that even though one of the teams decided not to make the playoffs anymore. It was a great rivalry, one that alternated between dramatic playoff showdowns, legitimate bad blood, and goofy “Wait, did that really just happen?” scenes.
But which Battle of Ontario moment is your favourite? And more importantly, what does that choice say about you as a person? Let’s find out, as we run through 12 of the most memorable moments in the rivalry’s history.
Moment No. 1: Daniel Alfredsson’s hit from behind on Darcy Tucker
A rarely acknowledged fact about the Battle of Ontario is that it didn't always involve all that much bad blood. In 2000 and 2001, the two teams hadn't built up much in the way of animosity, and the matchups felt like more a geographic novelty than a real rivalry. Even the two fan bases largely got along.
But it's not hard to pinpoint the exact moment that changed. It came in the final minutes of game five of the 2002 matchup between the two teams, with both the game and the series knotted at 2–2.
You really couldn't draw up a better playoff controversy. Tucker was a divisive player, beloved as a gritty warrior in Toronto but viewed as a pest and diver by Sens fans. Meanwhile, Alfredsson was considered a virtual saint in Ottawa, but the moment transformed him into the rivalry's arch-villain in the eyes of Leaf fans.
Having Alfredsson escape a penalty for drilling Tucker into the boards was near-perfect; having the Senators' captain score the winning goal seconds later was downright diabolical.
What it says about you: You are a Senators fan, and there's a 90–per cent chance you remember this moment more fondly than your wedding day or the birth of your children.
Moment No. 2: Ricard Persson boards Tie Domi
Domi was front and centre throughout the rivalry's heyday, and normally anything that left him bloodied would be just fine with Ottawa fans. But that wasn't the case in game six of the teams' 2002 second-round matchup, when a hit from behind worked against the Senators just two days after Alfredsson flattened Tucker.
The Senators were looking to close out the series on home ice, and had jumped out to an early 2–0 lead that Leafs coach Pat Quinn later admitted had him worried the final might end up being 10–0. Ottawa fans were already breaking out the mocking "goodbye" chant. That's when Persson decided to drill Domi from behind, cutting the Leafs' enforcer and earning a five-minute major.
The Leafs scored twice on the power play, and went on to win the game 4–3. The two teams headed back to Toronto, where the Senators went out meekly with a 3–0 loss.
The hit led to one of the rivalry's most memorable quotes, when Alfredsson told reporters that they'd be going on to the next round "if Domi had better balance".
What it says about you: You're a Leafs fan, and your life goal is to someday meet Domi and personally thank him for not having better balance.
Moment No. 3 The first shootout
When the NHL emerged from the year-long lockout that killed the 2004–05 season, it was with a full slate of 15 opening-night games on Oct. 5, 2005. But only one, featuring the Leafs and Senators in Toronto, went to a shootout, marking the first time in league history that the tie-breaker gimmick made an appearance.
Alfredsson got the honours of taking the first shot and scoring the first goal. Three current Hall of Famers were involved in Dominik Hasek, Ed Belfour and Eric Lindros. Dany Heatley ended it by scoring the first-ever shootout winner. And yet somehow, the most memorable moment from the whole thing has become Jason Allison's slow-motion attempt, which is rumoured to still be going on to this day.
What it says about you: You still think the shootout is cool. Hi there, Mr. Bettman, thanks for reading.
In the Friday Grab Bag:
- My brilliant idea for making no-name trades fun
- A new contender for most obscure four-goal scorer ever
- The NHL launches "Hockey is for Everyone"
- The three comedy stars, including the easiest #1 pick ever
- And a classic YouTube breakdown of a trade that will make Jim Rutherford and Steve Yzerman sad
The following is from an email exchange between Dave Lozo and Sean McIndoe (Down Goes Brown). Each month they will talk some nonsense and debate the biggest topics in the NHL in our monthly review. You can also check out the Biscuits podcast with Sean and Dave as they discuss the events of the week.
Hi Dave...
It's time for our monthly roundup of the NHL, in which we cover the key stories, make incorrect predictions, and generally complain. Mostly the latter.
Let's start with a topic we know pretty well, because we just released a book on it: the NHL's greatest 100 players. The league released its list over All-Star weekend, naming 100 legends as the best of the best. We put together a list of our own, and went the extra step of ranking it. That resulted in an ebook that's now available for purchase.
Having spent the time to research and build out a list of our own, we're on solid ground to take shots at the league's version. So how'd they do? What were the worst picks and/or snubs on the NHL's official list?
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Lozo: Bad picks: Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Mike Modano, Mike Gartner, Adam Oates, Jacques Lemaire, Grant Fuhr.
Shoulda been picks: Evgeni Malkin, Jarome Iginla, Joe Thornton, Henrik Lundqvist, Dale Hawerchuk, Pierre Pilote, Zdeno Chara.
I won't go into detail about why the bad picks were bad, but the NHL seemed like it wanted to reward Cups instead of the quality of player. Except the Cup-less Gartner, which was odd, since the Rangers trading him away in 1994 was a big reason why they won the Cup.
Dudes who played most of their careers in the 1980s were rewarded more than anyone else, probably because the "blue ribbon" panel was made up mostly of people who grew up on that hockey. Did you see the highlights they showed from that era? Guys were scoring on 20-foot backhanders along the ice because goaltenders were about as skilled as your kid brother using pillows as leg pads after getting into the cough syrup.
Top 100 snub? Photo by Charles LeClaire-US TODAY Sports
Our list, however, is flawless and available everywhere e-books are sold.
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DGB: Yeah, the focus on the 80s was a bit strange, especially coming at the expense of today's players. I think we'd all assumed that the NHL would put a thumb on the scale and make sure that the current generation was well-represented. That only makes sense—you're doing this as a marketing exercise, so market the guys who fans can actually still pay money to see.
Instead, we got the big three of Crosby/Ovechkin/Jagr, and then a bunch of Blackhawks. That's just weird. I guess the league really did just tally up the panel's votes and go with that.
By the way, James Mirtle had the full list of who was on the panel. With maybe one or two exceptions, it's pretty much a who's who of knowledgeable hockey people. But it's definitely an old-school group, and the old school does love their Cups.
I agree with most of your picks, although I was fine with Fuhr and I think the case of Gartner and even Oates is a decent one. Modano is a strange one, though. I don't know about you, but he's the one guy I got the most feedback on after we left him off our list. I thought we'd get it from outraged Blackhawks fans because we didn't include Toews, or even old-time Habs fans who were mad about Bob Gainey or Henri Richard.
Nope. Instead, it was Modano who people thought was a slam dunk. A guy who played for 20 years, had one second-team All-Star nod, and never cracked the top five in MVP voting even once. If he's not American, I'm not even sure he's in the conversation at all, but people I heard from couldn't fathom a list without him.
Did you have anyone like that where you got unexpected feedback?
The 2016–17 Toronto Maple Leafs season has the team’s fans spewing the f-word. But for once, it’s the positive version: These guys are… fun.
We don’t really know if they’re good yet. They’re certainly better than they’ve been in years, and probably far better than just about anyone predicted. They’re holding down a playoff spot, sure, but have also lost more games than they’ve won, so the jury’s still out.
But fun? There’s really no debate. This year’s Leafs are young, fast and play high-event hockey, even when their coach doesn’t want them to. Love them or hate them, there may not be a team in the league right now that’s more entertaining to watch.
Maple Leafs fans haven’t had many great teams to cheer on over the last half-century. The team hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967, which is a fact that you might be familiar with if you’ve studied your history and/or ever spoken to anyone who doesn’t like the Leafs for more than three seconds. Since then, Leafs Nation hasn’t even had a trip to the final to cheer about.
But when it comes to fun teams, Leafs fans have enjoyed a few. Not as many as other teams, maybe but enough to fill up an arbitrary list.
So today, let's make that list, by counting down the top 10 fun Maple Leafs teams since that 1967 championship.
No. 10: 2012–13
Fun is relative. When a team is consistently good, fans can start to get a little spoiled, somehow finding things to complain about even as their team rumbles its way to yet another 100-point season. (Yes, we're all looking at you right now, Blackhawk fans.)
The flip side is that when things are bad, you take whatever fun you can get.
That's why this season cracks the list, if only barely. Sure, finishing third in your division in a lockout-shortened season isn't much to brag about. But when you've suffered through seven straight years without a playoff appearance, you'll take it. And this really was an entertaining team, one that had Phil Kessel doing Phil Kessel things, a breakout season by Nazim Kadri, strong goaltending from the perpetually chipper James Reimer, and a lineup full of face-punchers who were always doing face-punchy things.
It all added up to a rare playoff berth. And despite going into their matchup with the Bruins as underdogs and falling behind 3–1 in the series, the Leafs scrapped back with a pair of hard-fought wins to force a seventh game.
I PVR'ed that game and haven't watched it yet, so nobody tell me how it ends.
No. 9: 1989–90
A rare appearance on our list by a season from the 1980s comes from the only Leafs team of the decade to so much as finish .500. But this team was a sneakily entertaining entry, one that finished third in the league in both goals scored and goals allowed.
They were still the Maple Leafs, so I don't need to tell you that it ended badly. They went out meekly in the first round of the playoffs, losing in five to the Blues in a series best remembered for Allan Bester giving up Sergei Momesso's overtime goal from outside the blueline. Far worse, this was the season that GM Floyd Smith decided it would be a good idea to trade a future first-round pick for journeyman defenceman Tom Kurvers, costing the team a shot at Eric Lindros and Scott Niedermayer.
But there was a bright side. The season's breakout star was winger Gary Leeman, who became the second player in franchise history to score 50 goals. He'd never come close to that total again, but that temporary boost in value would pay big dividends for the team in a few years.
In this week's Friday Grab Bag
- In defense of the (always terrible) NHL Awards
- One small tweak to the NHL's schedule reveal that would make for must-see TV
- An obscure player who Flames fans don't want to hear about right now
- The week's three comedy stars
- And the Maple Leafs make some number one overall pick history at the 1994 draft
In this week's Grab Bag:
- The snubbing of the Toronto Maple Leafs
- When stars get benched
- Comedy stars, featuring D-Boss and a bunny
- Introducing the concept of prebuilding
- And the New York Rangers show Madison Avenue how to do commercials right
After weeks of hype and speculation, the Toronto Maple Leafs unveiled their new logo last night. Reviews have been somewhat mixed, but the response among fans seems to have been largely positive.
That's good news for the franchise, which spent months working on the logo in a series of highly secretive closed-door meetings. Luckily, DGB spies were able to infiltrate those sessions, and reported back with some of the more interesting things they managed to overhear.
OK, guys, I'm feeling kind of crazy right now, so just hear me out: What about this time, we try a blue maple leaf with white lettering?
Geez, I made one little joke about how the vein at the bottom sort of looks like a mustache and Lamoriello's spent the last two hours screaming at it to shave.
So a few ground rules before we start, just the standard stuff from any logo design project: Please be respectful of everyone's opinion, don't leak any prototypes, and anyone who has ever worked for the Buffalo Sabres will be shot on sight.
Puck Soup is a podcast featuring me and Ryan Lambert. We release one free episode each week during the season, plus mailbags and other bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers.
"Biscuits" was the Vice Sports hockey podcast, hosted by DGB and Dave Lozo. It ran for two seasons; the final episode was in July, 2018. You can find the archives below:
