Toronto and Pittsburgh complete six-player swap
Technically, neither the Pittsburgh Penguins nor the Toronto Maple Leafs made the NHL playoffs this year. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to alter its format after suspending play for nearly five months and as a result, both clubs were eliminated in the play-in round.
On Tuesday, the two organizations decided to shake things up and completed a trade that included a total of six players and a first-round draft pick. Toronto sent Kasperi Kapanen, Jesper Lindgren and Pontus Aberg to Pittsburgh in exchange for a first-round draft pick (15th overall), Evan Rodrigues, Filip Hallander and David Warsofsky.
Kapanen returns to the club that drafted him 22nd overall in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. The forward only played a total of 11 games for the franchise though before being traded to Toronto in a deal that included superstar Phil Kessel heading the other way. He never played in Pittsburgh though, as all his games played for the organization were for the club’s American Hockey League affiliate Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
Toronto acquired a first-round pick in the upcoming draft, an asset they did not have prior to the trade. Toronto traded away its own first-round pick (13th overall) last year to the Carolina Hurricanes. However, don’t necessarily expect the Maple Leafs to keep the pick as general manager Kyle Dubas confirmed on a Zoom call with reporters that he is not done dealing yet.
“I don’t think this is going to be it for us as we go along, and I think that we need to gain greater [salary cap] flexibility than what we have,” Dubas said, via TSN. “We’ve got our own business to take care of with [Travis] Dermott and [Ilya] Mikheyev as restricted free agents, and this will give us some space beyond them to address all the other needs that we feel we have. Without the flexibility or the space to do so freely we would be really restricted in what we can do and this opens it up a little bit for us.”
“I would say that we’re open to keeping the pick, but I think with the spot that we’re at with our team right now we’re also open probably to moving it if the right deal came along for someone that could help us now,” Dubas said. “We’ll go through as though we’re going to be selecting there at 15 and there’s players at every position for forward, defence and goalie that are of interest to us at that spot.”
Dubas has received his fair share of criticism since taking over as Toronto’s general manager in May 2018. The 34-year-old has yet to guide the team past the opening round of the playoffs and fans have begun to grow increasingly impatient.
“When we don’t reach our expectations or potential, I think that the blame deserves to come directly to me,” Dubas said. “The criticism I would say is deserved. We didn’t reach expectations and that falls on me. I accept that and that’s fair and that’s fine.”
Tuesday’s deal seemingly helps both clubs as Pittsburgh immediately becomes more competitive while Toronto clears some much-needed cap space and acquires a couple of important assets.
The 2020 NHL Draft will be held virtually on October 9th and 10th.
