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By Lance Hornby

TORONTO — While Phil Kessel was playfully posing with a Stanley Cup full of hot dogs on the golf course, Kasperi Kapanen has been eating snow during intense summer scrimmages.

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No Toronto Maple Leafs player begrudges former teammate Kessel getting two Cup rings and the right to post such cheeky pictures, but the idea in making the multi-layered trade was to put Toronto on track for its own chance at success.

And it has: The first-round draft pick acquired from Pittsburgh in the summer of 2015 helped land goalie Frederik Andersen, the Leafs turned defenceman Scott Harrington into Marlies sniper Kerby Rychel, and the third piece in the trade, Kapanen, is heating up.

At the end of last season, the right winger, a 2014 first-round pick, had residency on Toronto’s fourth line and his two playoff goals in the Washington series tied him for second-most on the Leafs. Andersen has already made the Kessel trade palatable, but a continued climb by Kapanen would make the Leafs even happier.

“I think everyone in the hockey world saw that picture,” Kapanen said of Kessel’s hot-dog snap. “That was pretty funny. You have to celebrate it any way you want.”