You want to take a guess at who I think won the Paul Rabil trade?
Let me think about this for a few minutes … I’ll go with the 2015 MLL champion New York Lizards.
For the record, that was a joke. It’s an easy choice, at least as of now since the Lizards won the championship this year.
LIZARDS RECEIVED:
Paul Rabil (From Cannons)
Mike Stone (From Cannons)
CANNONS RECEIVED:
Max Seibald (From Lizards)
Chad Weidmaier (From Machine)
2015 First-Round Pick (From Machine) – John Glesener
2016 First-Round Pick (From Lizards)
2016 Second-Round Pick (From Lizards)
2017 First-Round Pick (From Lizards)
MACHINE RECEIVED:
Brian Karalunas (From Lizards)
2015 Seventh-Round Pick (From Cannons)
The trade was one of the most monumental in league history. Rabil is the face of the MLL. The Lizards went all in for this season — it paid off. One year later, one championship later, New York has won the trade, at least so far. No matter what happens, the 2015 championship is validation for New York but there can be multiple winners here.
Over the next five seasons, we will see how the Cannons really made out with this deal. Future draft picks are just commodities right now and until they turn into bodies on the field, we won’t know their value.
Seibald finished the year with 19 goals and nine assists for 28 points, which was 13th-best in the league for a middie. Though a highly-touted player coming out of Cornell in 2009, his performance this year was nothing special. Rabil’s, on the other hand, was.
Rabil finished with 32 goals and 20 assists and was the sparkplug for New York. Just his presence alone elevated the rest of the team. Stone’s 13 goals and six assists were pretty average, which was fine for the Lizards since the trade was never about him in the first place.
For Ohio, Karalunas had an outstanding season and the Machine didn’t give up much to get him. The first-round pick may have been costly but Karalunas provided an important veteran presence on the defense. The Machine had the third-fewest goals allowed in the league with 171, just four more than the league-leading Lizards.
So, to break it all down:
New York won the trade so far.
Ohio did OK. Not quite the winners, but definitely not the losers.
Boston’s side can’t be evaluated for another few years.
It’s important to keep in mind that there can be multiple winners depending on how all these draft picks pan out.
