Analyzing the worst trade in Toronto Maple Leafs history

In the 2005 NHL Draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs selected goaltender Tuukka Rask as the 21st overall selection. 

On June 26, 2006, then-Toronto general manager John Ferguson traded the rights to Tuukka Rask, who had yet to play a single NHL game, to the Boston Bruins for goaltender Andrew Raycroft. The trade was one-for-one. 

It has almost been two decades since this trade occurred, and it is safe to say that this is one of the worst trades in Toronto Maple Leafs history. 

Why then?

At the time in 2006, the Leafs were looking for a new goaltender as Ed Belfour’s contract expired at the end of the 2006 season. Despite having been drafted in 2005, Tuukka Rask elected to play the following season for Ilves Tampere in the Finnish Elite League. The Leafs also had another goalie prospect in the system, Justin Pogge. Pogge was drafted in 2004 and was coming off a career year with the Calgary Hitmen of the WHL. He posted a .926 save percentage and won gold for Canada in the World Juniors in 2006; thus, John Ferguson decided that Rask was unnecessary. 

Even if deciding to part with the first-round goaltender with high potential was correct, receiving Andrew Raycroft in return is baffling. Raycroft posted career-low numbers in the 2005–06 season. He played 30 games, winning only eight with a goals against average of 3.71 and a save percentage of .879. He was also on a statistical decline in basically every category, having been even worse than the year prior. 

Despite the struggles the previous year, it appeared that a change of scenery was good news for Andrew Raycroft. In his first year in Toronto, he played an incredible 72 games, with 37 wins, tying the Leafs franchise record set by Ed Belfour. He registered a GAA of 2.99 and a SV% of .894. 

After that

Unfortunately, Raycroft would only play one full season in Toronto. The following year, the 2007–08 season, he went 2–9–5 with a 3.92 GAA and a .876 SV%. In June of 2008, he was placed on waivers for purposes of buyout, and his contract was bought out by the Leafs. He then went on to sign in Colorado for the Avalanche. 

Tuukka Rask, on the other hand, flourished in Boston. Immediately following the trade, Rask remained in Finland playing the 2006–07 season for Ilves Tampere. He then made the jump to North America, where he spent two seasons in the AHL playing for the Providence Bruins. Overall, he went 60–33–6 for the Providence Bruins and in 2008–09 posted a 2.50 GAA and a .920 SV%. 

Rask graduated to the NHL in the 2009–10 season, and the rest is honestly history. That season, after playing 45 games, with a record of 22–12–5, Rask started in the playoffs and led his team to an upset over the Buffalo Sabres in the first round. The Bruins ended up getting reverse-swept by the Flyers in the second round, but the stage was set for Rask.

What could have been

In 2011, the Bruins went on to win the Stanley Cup in Game 7 over the Vancouver Canucks. Rask played backup to then-Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, but the following decade of Boston hockey was all Tuukka Rask. 

Rask won the Vezina Trophy in the 2013–14 season and led the Bruins to the Stanley Cup finals in both the 2012–13 season and the 2018–19 season. His career would come to an end in February of 2022 after attempting to make a return from hip surgery. 

There is almost nothing to analyze from this trade. The Leafs lost it handily, and there is no silver lining to find. In fact, the lack of performance by Andrew Raycroft is a major contributing factor in the Leafs acquiring Vesa Toskala, another name that might bring longtime Leafs fans PTSD flashbacks. 

In conducting research for this piece, I found Steve Dangle’s trade tree quite cathartically funny and would like to share it with you all: