from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

The trade that sent Tuukka Rask to the Boston Bruins could have been made without the emerging superstar involved.

According to those close to the deal, the Bruins would have happily accepted young goaltender Justin Pogge in exchange for Andrew Raycroft.

The problem at the time was, Leafs general manager John Ferguson was uneasy about moving Pogge, wasn’t convinced Rask was better and wouldn’t agree to move Pogge because he had won the gold medal playing for Team Canada at the world junior championships that year.

Ferguson told his senior staff that “we’d get killed for trading the gold medal goalie,” so he agreed to make the deal with Boston, which was questionable at the time and looks horrendous in retrospect.

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