Sundin to Toronto Trade

[Kranix]

Was Sundin, Butcher, Warriner, and a 1st for Wendel Clark, Lefebvre, Wilson, and a 1st seen as a good trade for either side at the time, and how is it viewed nowadays?

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[tarheelhockey]

This article gives some insight on the trade:

How the Wendel Clark-Mats Sundin NHL draft blockbuster came to be - Sportsnet.ca

Here's a vid that shows the general mainstream reaction, plus a fantastic clip of Bettman announcing the trade live at the draft with accompanying audience reactions:



Here's a hot take that probably gives a good approximation of what the trade thread would have looked like if HF existed back then:

 

[Thirty One]

Don Cherry had some thoughts:

 

[Habsfan18]

I think that while mostly everyone in hockey knew thats Mats Sundin was the better player at this point, and that the Leafs were acquiring a young player with star potential..the narrative around the deal was that the Leafs were trading the heart and soul of the franchise. Most of the fanbase was crushed. I think they got over it pretty quickly though.

When the Leafs re-acquired Clarke, it was viewed as “righting a wrong.” Not that the Leafs lost the Sundin deal by any stretch, just that Wendel Clarke should have always been a Maple Leaf.

But this was a big win for the Leafs, obviously. It should have been viewed as a big win at the time as well.

 

[Habsfan18]

 

[Kranix]

What I remember of watching hockey back then, Clark was underwhelming and Quebec in general choked in that one playoff series, and then he was gone. And he was often injured then and going forward.

 

[Habsfan18]

 

[tarheelhockey]

And he was often injured then and going forward.

I didn't realize until just now, checking his stats, just how much time Clark missed.

Even if you pro-rate him for a 77-game season for 94-95 (which is dubious given his pace of missing games) he still only averaged about 53 games per season on an 82-game standard.

 

[MadLuke]

I remember foolishly liking this very much for the Nordiques has a way to get over their playoff issues (Clarks being a favorite of mine and being quite young and naive, while older fans didn't like it at all).


Nordiques was saved by the fact that Lefevre was quite the key and mostly that the Clark-Thomas-Lemieux trade worked well.

 

[Staniowski]

Cliff Fletcher made several good trades during his career as a GM. This is another one.

He really sold high with Clark. Wendel was actually a better scorer in '93-'94 than Sundin was (and better than Sakic too).

But Wendel was always injured and wasn't a very good all-around player either.

Sundin obviously was great for the Leafs.

But, the Leafs did miss Clark's best attributes.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I remember foolishly liking this very much for the Nordiques has a way to get over their playoff issues (Clarks being a favorite of mine and being quite young and naive, while older fans didn't like it at all).


Nordiques was saved by the fact that Lefevre was quite the key and mostly that the Clark-Thomas-Lemieux trade worked well.

in 1996, wendel clark scored 32 goals and got 58 points and stayed mostly healthy.

after getting traded back to toronto that year, they reunited him with gilmour and he got 8 goals and 15 points in 13 games.

he wasn't anything like claude lemieux defensively, but he would have been dynamite wreaking havoc on the forecheck and taking passes from forsberg or sakic wouldn't he? imagine clark - sakic - deadmarsh on one line and kamensky - forsberg - young on the second line, with yelle - ricci - keane on the third? i still think they beat detroit.

i also wonder how those bloodbaths go, if they still are bloodbaths, if wendel clark is out there throwing hands instead of claude lemieux.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

in terms of everybody wins trades, i have this one right there with

ramage + wamsley for hull
tikkanen for weight
nieuwedyk for iginla
peverley for wheeler

 

[Big Phil]

It was a great trade, one of the better steals. I think it broke a lot of hearts though. Clark was like Trevor Linden to Canuck fans. They both came back multiple times to their original teams but were worse each time they came back. Getting Sundin for 15 years at a PPG rate was incredible. Clark peaked in 1994 and he just didn't play enough to be Sundin's equal. Once this happened I feel that Toronto did the opposite in getting Clark back in February 1996. We gave up what would have been Roberto Luongo, all for an emotional-esque trade where Clark never hit those 1994 levels again.

 

[Stephen]

The Maple Leafs won that trade in value the moment it was made, but it also burst the 1993 and 1994 bubble and sent them on an inevitable spiral to the bottom of the league. You could make the argument they were out of gas anyway by the end of the Vancouver series, but they were never the same from a defensive/chemistry point of view. No fault to Mats Sundin obviously.

Also, even though the underrated Lefebvre component worked out very well for Quebec/Colorado, the trade needed the additional Clark-Lemieux-Thomas three way trade a year later to really make it work for Quebec/Colorado to finally put them over the top.

For Toronto, Fletcher went out and traded Kenny Jonsson, the eventual Roberto Luongo pick and a couple of other parts to re-acquire Wendel Clark and Mathieu Schneider. Schneider ended up turning into Karpovtsev and later Bryan McCabe. In the end, it looked something like:

Roberto Luongo, Kenny Jonsson for Mats Sundin and Bryan McCabe.

 

[Voight]

Amazes me Fletcher acquired two #1 Centers (Gilmour + Sundin) and really did not give up much in terms of assets.

But the same guy gave up a 1st for Tom Kurvers. Also one for Clarke (but I will allocate some of that to fan pressure / righting a wrong as others here have said)

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Amazes me Fletcher acquired two #1 Centers (Gilmour + Sundin) and really did not give up much in terms of assets.

But the same guy gave up a 1st for Tom Kurvers. Also one for Clarke (but I will allocate some of that to fan pressure / righting a wrong as others here have said)

kurvers had already been traded to vancouver by the time fletcher got to toronto. actually i’m not sure exactly when fletcher was hired in the summer of 91 but kurvers might already have been traded a third time in the draft day babych/ludwig threeway.

 

[kaiser matias]

kurvers had already been traded to vancouver by the time fletcher got to toronto. actually i’m not sure exactly when fletcher was hired in the summer of 91 but kurvers might already have been traded a third time in the draft day babych/ludwig threeway.

Kurvers was traded to Vancouver in January, while Fletcher was hired in June.

 

[McGarnagle]

Lefebvre is the guy who often gets forgot but was a massive part of this in terms of the on-ice effect for QC/COL.