NHL trade trees. You either love them or you hate them. They will either make you feel extremely old as you look back on players you watched play as a kid 30 years ago, or you’re too young to see the effects. For this one, we should get a nice mix of both as we touch on the Brian Leetch trade tree with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2004. This deal is not small, and it is somewhat recent, so buckle up.
As always, let’s start from the beginning. A few years after the Big Bang, the 1986 NHL draft came around. There may have been some minor stuff in between, but we’re focusing on the draft. New York was walking into it with the 9th overall pick, hoping to find someone to help the organization in the future. These kids were not going to be capable of playing in the NHL for the immediate future being picked that far back, so it was going to take time.
With the pick, the New York Rangers drafted a defenseman from Boston College. Brian Leetch was just a different level of monster. After winning the Calder Trophy in the 1988-89 season, the Rangers defenseman won the Norris Trophy twice and collected the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP in 1994 as the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup. He was named one of the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players in 2017-18.
On top of his 1988-89 appearance in the all-rookie team and listed in the all-star team of the season five times, Leetch would eventually find his way into the hockey hall of fame, but before we get to that, we have the entire trade to go over. We have to go back to the end of his time in New York in 2003-04. New York was going to miss the playoffs, and Leetch was still a valuable asset when the Toronto Maple Leafs came calling.
As the Toronto Maple Leafs were loading up with the likes of Ron Francis trying to win their first cup in almost 40 years, they decided that a premier left-shot defenseman would be of value to them. Leetch’s name came up in the rumor mill, and the wheels started to turn as the two clubs hammered out a deal that would send one of the best defensemen of all time to Ontario.
Leetch put up 240 goals and 741 assists for 981 points in 1129 games as a member of the New York Rangers. Toronto was hoping that the explosive offense he provided from the backend would help them get over the top, and in 15 regular season games, Leetch had two goals and 13 assists for 15 points. In the playoffs, Leetch had eight assists in 13 games as the Leafs lost in the second round. It’s a quick end to this branch.
As for the pick the Leafs got, it was used on Slovakian forward Roman Kukumberg. He never played in the NHL and was never dealt, leaving us with just the New York Rangers side of this deal to do. This deal for the Leafs ending so abruptly is not a great thing, but we know that the other side of this trade tree has a few assets to cover, so we’ve got some stuff to dive into.
Jarko Immonen played in a grand total of 20 games as a Ranger, scoring three goals and five assists for eight points in two seasons. He wasn’t dealt. Maxim Kondratiev has a little more time in the NHL, playing in 29 games, scoring one goal and two assists before he was sent to the Anaheim Ducks for Petr Sykora and a 4th round pick in 2007. Sykora played in 40 games as a Ranger, scoring 16 goals and 15 assists for 31 points. He was not traded.
That fourth-round pick was traded to the Washington Capitals for a 2006 5th-round pick. He played in Hartford for a few years but never with the Rangers. He was traded to the Ducks for Matt McCue. He never made the NHL, and he was never dealt after being acquired from Anaheim. This means there’s nothing else to discuss in this trade tree.
You might be sitting here going, “Well, that was underwhelming. Why did you make this if it just ends suddenly?” The reason for that is simple. Not every trade tree is going to be the slam dunk home run that we think about when we talk about Scott Gomez or Rick Nash. This deal was underwhelming for everyone, and it just shows that selling off when you’re missing the playoffs isn’t the best course of action all the time.