The 2018 NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone – the biggest names on the move being Ryan McDonagh and Paul Stastny – while the Toronto Maple Leafs stood pat after acquiring Tomas Plekanec from the Montreal Canadiens a day earlier.
While the Canadiens were possibly the last trade partner that fans expected to see for the Leafs, it wasn’t incredibly unusual considering what the team was after and what they were able to pry from the Montreal franchise.
That said, we decided to take a closer look at the past five trades the Leafs made with every franchise over the years. First up is the Anaheim Ducks.
Moving Enroth
The Leafs and Ducks seem to love swapping goaltenders, at least recently. The last trade the Leafs made with Anaheim goes back just over a year to Jan. 11, 2017, when the Leafs moved goaltender Jhonas Enroth to the Ducks in exchange for a seventh-round pick in the upcoming 2018 NHL Entry Draft.
Enroth didn’t play a single game with the Ducks before he headed back to Europe and joined Dinamo Minsk of the KHL where he’s played 51 games in the 2017-18 season so far with a 2.04 goals against average and .924 save percentage. He also played for Sweden in the Olympic Games, but came up short of winning a medal.
The Leafs, however, still have the seventh-round pick and it should be interesting to see what they’re able to do with it for the upcoming draft.
Bye, Bye Bernier
Before that, the Leafs also handed the Ducks goaltender Jonathan Bernier in a Jul. 8 trade back in 2016. In exchange, the Leafs acquire a conditional 2017 pick – one they never saw.
If you’re asking why they never saw a pick in return, it’s likely because there were four conditions on the pick. For starters, the Ducks needed to play in the Stanley Cup Final in 2017. That didn’t happen. On top of that, Bernier would’ve had to play 50 percent of the Ducks’ playoff games which also didn’t happen.
Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston further broke down the conditions, but many saw this as a simple add-on to an earlier trade between the clubs that saw the Leafs grab their current starting goaltender Frederik Andersen from the Ducks.
Seeking a Starter
As for the Andersen trade, the Leafs acquired the starting goaltender on Jun. 20, 2016, when the Ducks decided that John Gibson was their goalie of the future. In return, the Ducks received a 2016 first-round pick and a 2017 second-round pick.
The first-round pick was originally acquired by the Leafs from the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Phil Kessel deal and ended up as the 30th overall pick. With it, the Ducks took Sam Steel as the final pick in the first round.
As for the second-rounder, the pick originally belonged to the San Jose Sharks and the Leafs acquired it in Roman Polak deal in Feb. 2016. The Ducks used the pick to take Maxime Comtois 50th overall, but have yet to sign the prospect.
While neither pick has played a game for the Duck yet, Andersen has been a major piece in the Leafs’ success the last couple of seasons. In 120 regular season games since the trade, he has a record of 65-32-19 with a .920 save percentage and 2.67 goals against average while having a Vezina-type season in 2017-18.
Related: Andersen – The Underrated Vezina Candidate
He had a strong showing for the Leafs against the Washington Capitals in the first round of the 2017 playoffs, but the team ended up losing in six games. The Leafs have Andersen signed through the 2020-21 season with and annual average value of $5 million.
Swapping Defenders
Prior to the Andersen trade, you have to go back nearly three years to find the last deal done between these two clubs. At that time, on Mar. 2, 2015, the Leafs acquired defenceman Eric Brewer and a 2016 fifth-round pick for young defender Korbinian Holzer.
Holzer’s played 75 games for the Ducks since the trade with 2 goals and 10 points to show for it. This season he has zero points in 14 games and has one year left on his contract at $900,000 before he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
As for what the Leafs acquired, Brewer played just 18 games for the Leafs following the move with two goals and five points before retiring. As for the pick, the Leafs ended up trading it to the Washington Capitals along with Daniel Winnik for Connor Carrick, Brooks latch and a 2016 second-rounder. The Caps used the pick to take Beck Malenstyn with the 145th overall pick. He remains a member of the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos.
Holland for Blacker
Finally, the fifth most recent trade involving the two teams happened back on Nov. 16, 2013. The Leafs gave up prospect Jesse Blacker along with a 2014 second-round pick and a 2014 seventh-round pick for Peter Holland and Brad Staubitz.
Holland played 174 games for the Leafs over parts of four seasons collecting 25 goals and 63 points, before being moved to Arizona. Staubitz didn’t play a game for the Leafs and the trade ended up being the end of his NHL career.
On the other side, the Ducks got one game out of Blacker before his career took him to Europe. As for the picks, the Ducks used the second-round pick to take Marcus Peterson 38th overall and the seventh-round pick (which was originally Anaheim’s in the first place) to take Ondrej Kase 205th overall.
Pettersson debuted this season and has played six games for the Ducks in 2017-18. The defenceman has zero points and two penalty minutes, as well as a plus-two rating to show for it.
As for Kase, he debuted for the Ducks last season and has tallied 46 points in 101 games for the Ducks over parts of two seasons. This season, he has 31 points in 48 games for the Ducks and seems to be the lone piece that mattered to this point in this particular trade.
So take a look through the last five trades between the Leafs and the Ducks stemming all the way back to 2013. Did either team have a real advantage in the outcomes? Feel free to share your thoughts below as we’ll look ahead to the relationship between the Leafs and the Coyotes next.
