SportsHockeyMaple Leafs

Ex-Toronto Maple Leafs GM shares regrettable reason why team passed on drafting Joe Sakic

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
|
Jun 10 2025, 6:14 pm
Ex-Toronto Maple Leafs GM shares regrettable reason why team passed on drafting Joe Sakic
Lou Capozzola/Imagn Images

For all the storied history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, there’s probably just as much, if not more, alternative history that fans will always wonder about.

Though the franchise will likely never be irrelevant in the NHL discourse, it’s rarely for triumphs and celebrations, but more often for commiserations on what could have been.

And as per an appearance on Leafs Morning Take by former Leafs general manager and front office executive Gord Stellick, the Leafs were alarmingly close to drafting future Hall of Famer Joe Sakic, before ultimately passing on him for a regrettable reason.

In 1987, the Leafs had the seventh overall pick, with Sakic one of the top prospects in his class. Coming off a 60-goal, 73-assist season with the Swift Current Broncos, the 5-foot-11 Sakic was the fourth forward taken off the board, but fell to 15th overall in a defence-heavy draft.

“I talked about it with Joe Sakic when he got inducted [into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012]. I was there in the front office in one way or another for 14 years and the draft. We were picking [seventh] overall, and John Brophy was our coach, and he had way too much influence as a coach, because the owner, Harold Ballard, liked him,” Stellick told the hosts. It’s absurd. A coach is even involved in who you’re drafting… but he had the ear of the owner.”

The late Ballard has a reputation as one of the sport’s all-time worst owners, appeared to have a history of meddling with decisions often left to the front office in most other franchises, with people like Brophy often stepping out of their lane.

“We were going to pick a defenseman, Luke Richardson. We feel, you know, that’s going to be the case if everything goes well in the [picks ahead of him]. And anyway, it did,” Stellick added.

Richardson, whom the Leafs ultimately took, surely wasn’t a bad pick in his own right, playing 21 seasons in the NHL, but hardly reached the Hall of Fame heights a few of his draft class peers did.

“[Head scout Floyd Smith] makes a last-minute kind of pitch that for Joe Sakic. The table’s up in arms, like, ‘holy crap’… John Brophy was going nuts because he doesn’t like small centermen,” Stellick shared.

Playing his entire career with one organization — first the Quebec Nordiques, and later their relocation to Colorado and rebranding as the Avalanche — Sakic put up a legendary 1641 points across 20 NHL seasons.

“Sakic wasn’t even the first pick of Quebec. They took Brian Fogarty, and they had a second pick in the first round. I’m sure it worked out better for Joe Sakic in that regard,” Stellick shared.

Given that no Toronto player has ever put up 1,000 points in the uniform, Mats Sundin is the closest with 987. Drafting Sakic could’ve placed him on a career path as perhaps the greatest Leaf of all time.

ADVERTISEMENT