It's now been over half a season since Phil Kessel became a Toronto Maple Leaf. The Kessel trade has been the subject of much scrutiny, originally it was because it was widely considered that Brian Burke overpaid (sending the Leafs' 2010 and 2011 1st-round picks and 2010 2nd-round pick to Boston) for him. But now, even after recovering from a horrid October, the Maple Leafs are bottom feeders. As of Saturday morning, the Leafs are sitting 28th in the NHL with 44 points, 5 below 27th-ranked Columbus and 6 above 29th-ranked Edmonton. That puts Toronto in the dreaded lottery pick position, giving them a chance for the first-overall pick in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. Or, rather, it puts Boston in a lottery position.

Burke made the trade because Kessel was a known quantity who could make an immediate impact on a relatively weak team, while still young enough to have a great upside for years to come. This is actually solid reasoning, or at least it would be if your team gave up a tenth-overall pick and not a third, especially in a draft where the top three prospects are likely going to be very, very good.

Of course, the Maple Leafs' record is skewed after the horrific month of October. During this month the team was without Kessel, who was recovering from an injury (he returned for the first game of November). Their record in October? 1-7-4, or effectively 1-11. Going into Saturday's game against the Florida Panthers, Toronto sits at 17-25-10. Basically, with Kessel in the lineup the Maple Leafs are 16-18-6, a serious improvement, but still not good enough to get them anywhere near a playoff spot (in fact, being two games below .500 would still have them in 14th; Carolina's really been that bad).

Kessel's main job is to be a goal scorer. He's a sniper who takes a ton of shots. At first there was worry that Kessel's production would decline without a bona fide playmaker like Marc Savard, but Kessel scored 8 goals in his first 13 games and put most of those thoughts to rest. But now that he's 40 games into the season, how is Kessel's production comparing to the rest of the NHL?

In 2008-09, Phil Kessel's 0.51 goals per game (GPG) was tied for 9th amongst players who had played 17 games or more (Marian Gaborik's 13 goals in 17 games was used as the minimum benchmark). That means Kessel was good for 42 goals when his GPG is prorated over 82 games, while averaging 3.5 shots a game. That's very respectable. In 2009-10? Using the same minimum requirement of 17 games played, Kessel is again tied, only this time for 35th.

Yes, 35th.

Kessel's 15 goals in 40 games is good for 0.38 GPG, which is lower than (in order of highest GPG rate): Alex Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Patrick Marleau, Sidney Crosby, Marian Gaborik, Dany Heatley, Teemu Selanne, Steven Stamkos, Alexander Semin, Michael Cammalleri, Marian Hossa, Alexandre Burrows, Tomas Fleischmann, Rick Nash, Joffrey Lupul, Zach Parise, Bobby Ryan, David Jones, James Neal, Henrik Sedin, Brian Gionta, Ryan Malone, Dustin Penner, Nicklas Backstrom, Jarome Iginla, Daniel Sedin, Mike Richards, Patrick Kane, Loui Eriksson, Danny Briere, Ryan Smyth, Patric Hornqvist, Jeff Carter, and Benoit Pouliot.

Benoit Pouliot? He's scoring 0.39 GPG, a number that includes his 2 goals in 14 games with Minnesota. Since being traded to Montreal he has 9 in 14 games played, or 0.64 GPG. Prorated, that's 52 goals. Then there's Guillaume Latendresse, who is averaging 0.31 GPG. But like Pouliot, Latendresse's numbers are skewed by the 2 goals in 23 games he scored with Montreal. After being swapped for Pouliot, Latendresse has scored 13 goals in 26 games with Minnesota, a steady 0.50 GPG.

His centreman is Kyle Brodziak.

Kessel is also an expensive player. Of the top 53 players in GPG, Kessel's cap hit of $5,400,000 works out to roughly $173,000 per goal, good for 44th amongst that group. Now, it could be worse: Jarome Iginla, Anze Kopitar, Evgeni Malkin, and Eric Staal are all in that top 53 and they all cost over $200,000 per goal. There's also players like Pouliot, Moulson, Fleischmann, and Hornqvist (the last pick in the 2005 Entry Draft), all of whom are under $22,000 a goal. One of the hottest scorers in the NHL right now, Alex Burrows, costs roughly $53,000 at his current pace - more than three times cheaper than Kessel.

While he's not standing up well against his peers across the league, Kessel's true value is his impact on his own team, most important being their overall record. Here's how the Kessel factor plays out:

October (pre-Kessel): 1-7-4 (.250)
With Kessel in the lineup: 16-18-6 (.475)
When Kessel records a goal: 6-5-1 (.542)
When Kessel records an assist: 6-5-1 (.542)
When Kessel records a point: 10-10-2 (.500)

On a bad team, these are pretty good numbers. When looking at the Leafs season, the most accurate representation of the team's success comes when you throw October out the window. That month was a complete wash, and the Leafs have been a much improved team since then.

Of note are two other Maple Leafs players: Niklas Hagman and Alexei Ponikarovsky. Both of these players average 0.35 GPG, 0.03 lower than Kessel. Some team record breakdowns for games in which these players score over the season, in the disastrous month of October, and since November (when Kessel joined the team):

Hagman (season): 6-7-1 (.464)
Hagman (October): 1-3-0 (.250)
Hagman (since November): 5-4-1 (.550)

Ponikarovsky (season): 6-6-3 (.500)
Ponikarovsky (October): 0-2-2 (.250)
Ponikarovsky (since November): 6-4-1 (.591)

Based on this relatively small sample size, the Leafs are a .542 team when Kessel scores a goal, while in that same span a Hagman goal makes the Leafs a .550 team and a Ponikarovsky goal makes the Leafs a .591 team.

You can't really quantify a team's success based purely on one or two players. Kessel's made the Leafs a better team, for sure, but he's not at fault for Toskala's goaltending or the team's penalty kill, both of which have been very negative influences. That being said, look at a player like Steven Stamkos. While Stamkos was picked in 2008, hypothetically, the Kessel trade could send Boston a fist-overall pick that could be a player like Stamkos. Stamkos had a 0.29 GPG average in his rookie season. This year? Stamkos is in that 9th spot at 0.52 GPG. A year ago Kessel was obviously the better player. This year you'd probably rather have Stamkos.

Any trade is a risk. I'm sure when Montreal and Minnesota swapped Latendresse for Pouliot they probably weren't expecting either of them to turn into 40-goal scorers. Kessel has undoubtedly made the Maple Leafs better, but the immediate boost he has given Toronto has not compensated for other flaws in the Maple Leafs' game. As a result, it looks more and more likely that Boston is going to get a player in this year's draft who in a few years will turn out to be a better player than Kessel. Or the Bruins may be able to turn that pick into Ilya Kovalchuk as part of a package (speculating).

Add to this the first-round pick the Leafs gave up in next year's draft as well and things may look very, very ugly in hindsight a few years down the road.

Remember that trade that Mike Milbury made in 2001 for Alexei Yashin? That trade gave the Islanders immediate help up front in exchange for (arguably) Ottawa's best player. To get Yashin, Milbury gave up two unknown quantities: an awkward, unproven defensive prospect in Zdeno Chara, and a second-overall draft pick that became Jason Spezza. The Yashin for Chara and Spezza trade is considered one of the worst trades of the last decade (though not Milbury's worst). It's far, far, far too early to say that the Kessel trade is, or will be, as bad as the Yashin trade. Kessel may eventually turn into a 60-goal scorer. But right now he's not. He's a player who dropped from a 0.51 GPG average to 0.39 and cost several draft picks that, while not yet actual players, could potentially be very important pieces in Boston's future.

Incidentally, Yashin's GPG in his final season in Ottawa was 0.49. In his first season with the Islanders it dropped to 0.41, before falling to 0.32 in his next two seasons.

Bonus food for thought: Lee Stempniak

Stempniak isn't a huge goal scorer. He has scored in 13 goals this season, and the Leafs record in those games breaks down like this:

Stempniak (season): 7-3-3 (.654)
Stempniak (October): 1-1-2 (.375)
Stempniak (since November): 6-2-1 (.722)

Stempniak for team MVP?

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All statistics were compiled after the end of games on Friday, January 22, 2010. A PDF of Toronto's records in games where Kessel has registered points can be found here, while a PDF of statistics for the top goals per game scorers (including cap hits, dollars per goal, and prorated goal totals) can be found here.

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Bonus update: On Saturday, January 23, 2010 the Toronto Maple Leafs lost 2-0 to the Florida Panthers, giving the Maple Leafs a 17-26-10 record overall and a 16-19-6 record in the 41 games with Kessel in the lineup. After registering no goals in the game, Kessel now has 15 goals in 41 games for a 0.37 GPG average.