10 Jun 2015 06:43:08
To PIT: Kessel

To TOR: Malkin, Maatta, 1st 2016


Just thought that I'd add to the absurdity on this site with Kessel these days. Has anyone read analysis on trade value of Kessel these days? He's a tough sell even to the teams who might have interest in him. Cap issues are a bit thing and Kessel brings with him a huge cap hit and contract length at the end of a poor season. Teams are not going to fork over prime prospects and high picks and all the players you want. Kessel for Forsburg? You can't be serious. Pinball is obsessed with trading him to NYI for half their best going players AND half their best prospects and won't hammer into his head that there is zero chance that will happen, etc.

Pull the reigns. Kessel isn't going to get you the moon. If you're lucky he'll get guy a small asteroid that has an equal chance of luckily sailing by or crashing into the earth. People who are expecting him to get the leafs the same package he got the Bruins are absolute fools.

1.) 10 Jun 2015
10 Jun 2015 13:50:34
Scoring was the #1 problem in the league this year, so a team like florida with enormous amount of prospects and aging goaltender might fork over something good for one of the best snipers in the game. He had a bad year but so did all of toronto. i'm sure you could get a prospect and a 1st atleast

2.) 10 Jun 2015
10 Jun 2015 21:05:37
While I agree that some of the Kessel proposals are off, don't think he can be had for chump change. Yes, he collapsed a bit this year, but he remains number six in points over the last four seasons (right between Tavares and Stamkos) in spite of playing for one of the worst teams in the league with Bozak as his pivot. Kessel has been one of (if not the) most dynamic players in the game for periodic stretches over his career, and he is entering his prime. There isn't a GM in the league who doesn't know that.


As for his value, it's too early to say a Kessel trade can't equal the package the Bruins got for him. Hindsite is twenty-twenty, as the cliché goes. No one knew that the two firsts we gave up for him would turn into Seguin and Hamilton -- they could've just as easily been Brett Connolly and Duncan Siemens, in which case the Kessel trade would be viewed as a highway robbery executed by the Leafs.

So yes, you are right in saying Filip Forsberg won't be part of any package for Kessel, or any other player who has broken out (like a Klingberg, say, or Gaudreau). But he is definitely worth a pre-breakout prospect (Fiala, Reinhart), plus a first, plus a roster player/cap dump. And that's exactly what the Leafs are going to get for him.