Leafs unsigned prospect on the move
By Jon Steitzer
4 years agoI’d imagine there are very degrees of excitement around this ranging from: “Why are you bothering me with this?” to “Who is that guy?” Well, that doesn’t change the fact that this is something that happened with the Leafs and we’re going to cram it into your eye holes.
Cool. A 7th round pick isn’t bad. Especially when the Leafs had no intention of signing Gordeev…
So yeah, that’s what went down. The Leafs could have either had Gordeev go for nothing or they could get a 7th for him. They got a 7th for him. That’s a win.
When we did our prospect rankings last fall, Gordeev didn’t crack the Top 20, but he did make our list of honourable mentions and we had this to say about him:
Fedor Gordeev received five top twenty rankings, just like Stotts, but unlike Stotts he had a 12th overall ranking. The size has always been then for Gordeev, but the stride and skill are beginning to emerge. Once Gordeev gets away from Flint we might all have a better understanding of what he can do. While I didn’t rank Gordeev in my top twenty, I appreciate that the Leafs have continued to gamble on finding the unicorn that is the jumbo sized, physical skilled defenseman.
So, basically some people liked Gordeev and most of us didn’t. There was an appreciation for what he could achieve, and personally I wanted to see what he would do outside of Flint and playing on the Memorial Cup participating Guelph Storm didn’t increase his stock in my eyes or the eyes of Leafs management, which was probably the important audience here.
None of that is bad, but it doesn’t really stand out either. Gordeev could have been an interesting project player for the Leafs to continue with, but deciding to move on from him isn’t a huge shock either, and it’s not a bad risk for the Wild to take a chance on Gordeev.
In Closing
This is a thing that happened. When the Leafs nail down the year of the pick and the trade itself is completely finalized we’ll add an update to this. Here’s the update. The deal is done and it’s for a 2020 7th round pick, so additional pick this year
For the time being the Leafs still have Ryan McGregor and Dakota Joshua who could potentially be dealt in similar situations, though in both of those cases I wonder if an AHL contract may be the more likely outcome for them. McGregor is eligible to re-enter the draft where Joshua will become a free agent on August 15th.
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