I loved the trade at the time as Leaf fan. But geez the Leafs messed up with the 13th pick in the draft. They took LW Amirov. Left wingers and LHD are two of the most easily players to "find"
Mercer a centre/RWer...now a RW with Jersey was pick 14th. And RHD Schneider was picked 19th by the Rangers...and is a Ranger.
Even if Amirov hadn't got sick.....it wasn't good pick. I assume a team should pick a "lesser" player if that player plays a position that is harder to man

You got a couple of your numbers wrong – Toronto picked 15th and Mercer went 18th – and hindsight is 20/20, so I’m going to try to ignore where these players are now and review your comment based on what people were saying at the time of the draft.

I do recall Mercer being rated higher than 18th and being touted by the experts as a probable pick for Toronto at 15. I don’t remember where Schneider was ranked, but a couple of people in this discussion were suggesting at the time of the trade that he would have been a good use of this pick as the Leafs (and other teams) always seem to be looking for a right-shot defenseman. I don’t know if he was expected to go higher than 19th, but New York traded up to get him so they didn’t expect him to slip to 22nd.

In conclusion, I think you’re right. They couldn’t have known that Amirov would get sick, but even at that time the consensus outside of the team seemed to be that he wasn’t the best use of the pick.

There was certainly no guarantee that the pick would turn out to be a better player than Kapanen, but Toronto wanted to clear some cap space. I think they were also motivated by the opportunity to get back almost the same pick they had given up to unload Marleau.