When people think of veteran forward Andrew Ladd, he is typically remembered as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks or the Winnipeg Jets. Very few people remember that he was a Carolina Hurricane or that he was a member of the 2006 Stanley Cup championship roster, or that they drafted him. Even fewer people remember the trade the organization made to move up and pick the Maple Ridge, British Columbia native. Perhaps the most niche of the facts about him is that the Hurricanes drafted him in Raleigh.
On June 26, 2004, the Hurricanes made a deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Columbus had only been in the league for four years, and the organization was still in its infancy. At the time, being a new franchise meant growing pains for a few years and drafting and collecting good talent before emerging as a contender. As the Blue Jackets walked that path, they decided to trade down, giving us this trade tree.
For the Hurricanes, they were in their home arena as the RBC Center was hosting the NHL Draft. As the home team, general manager Jim Rutherford wanted to make a splash to excite a new fanbase, as the Hurricanes had been in Carolina for only seven years. This draft was an effort by the NHL to try and get the market into the game and draw fans to a significant event that will seldom visit the same city twice in a limited number of years.
A Simple Deal
In truth, it was a simple deal as the Hurricanes acquired the fourth overall pick in the 2004 NHL Draft in exchange for the eighth and 59th overall picks. Trades like this are not uncommon on the draft floor. As I’ve hinted, the Hurricanes used that fourth overall pick to draft Ladd. At 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, you can see why teams wanted the left winger in the era before the salary cap. He was a big-body player who could score with the Calgary Hitmen.
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Ladd made his NHL debut in 2005-06 coming out of the lockout as the Hurricanes took the league by storm. While acting as more of a depth piece than a core part, he captured the Stanley Cup in his rookie season. Under the leadership of Rod Brind’Amour and emerging stars like Eric Staal and Cam Ward, the league looked set to see a reign of the Hurricanes.
However, the NHL is a copycat league. As a team built on speed instead of toughness, every team in the league tried to shift gears to be faster. The Hurricanes did not have the same level of talent as others as they missed the playoffs in 2006-07, the last reigning champion to fail to make the postseason. In 2007-08, the Hurricanes were still on the outside looking in and were looking to recoup assets for pieces not in their future. At the trade deadline, the Canes found a new home for Ladd, who had tallied 26 goals and 24 assists for 50 points in 137 games for the organization.
A One-For-One Deal
Ladd was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks for Tuomo Ruutu. That’s it. It wasn’t the most outstanding deal for the Canes when you consider what Ladd went on to do in Chicago, but Ruutu was not a bad player for the Hurricanes by any means. Arriving at his debut game fresh off the plane, the Finnish forward had quite the debut. Taking a stick to the face in the first period only to return in the third with more than 30 stitches, he was quickly welcomed to the Triangle.
Ruutu played in Raleigh for parts of seven seasons. Over those 378 NHL games he played for the organization, he scored 90 goals and 126 assists for 216 points. He was a long-standing member of the Hurricanes roster that found success during his time in Carolina. After 2009, though, the organization had some issues reaching the postseason, and in 2014, that was no different. Ruutu was traded to the New Jersey Devils with time winding down on his NHL career. While there were pros and cons to Ruutu joining the Devils, it seemed to work out for the Hurricanes.
Carolina got back Andrei Loktionov and a conditional 2017 third-round pick. If the Hurricanes traded or signed Loktionov, they would not get the pick, but he returned to Russia after scoring three goals and seven assists in 20 games for the Canes. So the 2017 third-round pick moved to the possession of general manager Ron Francis. With that pick, they drafted center Morgan Geekie. He played a few NHL games with the Hurricanes but was taken by the Seattle Kraken in their expansion draft.
Blue Jackets’ Side
If you read this as a Blue Jackets fan, you must be somewhat optimistic. Trading down from the fourth overall pick isn’t always the best idea, but it is if there’s a great player picked in either position. That indeed had to be the case for this young Blue Jackets team desperately trying to find its path. Reality has quite the bite when its jaws find you, and it bit the Blue Jackets here.
With the 59th overall pick, the Blue Jackets drafted left-shot defenseman Kyle Wharton. Not only did he never make the NHL, but he never signed a contract. However, with the eighth overall pick, the Jackets found someone who eventually played in the NHL for them. Not as much as they would have liked, but it was better than the other pick from this deal.
That player was Alexandre Picard. He played parts of five seasons with the organization, recording just two assists in 67 games. After his fifth year, the Blue Jackets decided they had enough and wanted to see if a change of scenery would help him. It didn’t, and Picard found himself out of the league soon after. He now plays in a minor league in Quebec called the Ligue Nord-Americaine du Hockey or the LNAH. He played last season for the Jonquière Marquis for those that are interested.
Columbus’ return for Picard was underwhelming. It was Chad Kolarik. He played two games with the Blue Jackets but left the organization in free agency. Later, he played four games with the New York Rangers, recording an assist (for those Puckdoku or Immaculate Grid players).
The Ladd Trade Tree Overall
If you combine the three players on the Blue Jackets side of this deal, they got just two assists and 69 games of service. Conversely, the Hurricanes got 573 games, 125 goals, and 164 assists for 289 points. That is just from the regular season. If you want to judge this on postseason success, Ruutu helped the Hurricanes get to the Eastern Conference Final in 2009, Geekie helped the Canes through the qualifying round in the bubble, and they won the Cup with Ladd.
While this tree is smaller, there is a direct link from this trade at the 2004 NHL Draft to the Kraken Expansion Draft on July 21, 2021. Though this tree has concluded, it’s amazing how teams can string deals together. I wanted to explore this one because everything is directly affected by the original move. There’s nothing that is linked by a minor piece that was involved in a significant deal elsewhere. It’s a neat end to how a trade made in 2004 could impact an organization almost 20 years later.
