Kessel traded to Penguins

[Palmateer29]

Naturally, I would have done what they did: put him up for auction and take the best bid. And I would have eaten some salary because I felt as the Pens did that he was overpaid - to help get some talent back. But he wouldn't have played for my team in 2015-16 after what he did this season. I have zero tolerance for quitters.

I agree with part of this but is a consistent 35-40 goal scorer with a sub-par center really underpaid? Kane a 25-30 goal scorer is making 10.5 next year with an elite center, (and screwing his teams salary cap big time). Does that make Kessel more reasonable?

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

This was a pretty good summation from Mirtle:

He?s an anomaly ? an odd duck that has such remarkable natural athletic gifts that for him succeeding was never about the typical ?look like you care? mentality that permeates hockey.

Kessel cared, but he cared in his own weird Kessel way. He wanted to win, but he wasn?t the kind of player who could bleed on the ice in an obvious lost cause ? like the end of last season ? night after night.

But he was beloved by a lot of his teammates in Toronto because they could see something there in his awkward silences and occasional jokes. They could also see his incredible talent, every day.

?Any sport you want to play him in, he?ll beat you at,? teammate Joffrey Lupul once said.

Did Phil Kessel have some flaws as a Leaf? Did he deserve some blame? Absolutely.

But he also never should have been set up to be more than what he was, which is a quiet, unassuming winger who isn?t good defensively and who can score goals better than almost anybody on the planet.

You talk to people in Wisconsin, and that?s what Kessel was when he was 13 or 14 years old. That?s what he was when he moved to the U.S. national development team as a teenager and that?s what he was as a rookie with the Boston Bruins back in 2006.

He bombed his draft interviews; he slipped to fifth, despite having the point totals of a No. 1 overall pick.

He was always a bad fit for Toronto ? and especially for this Toronto: a talent-bereft team that became mired in a mindless non-rebuilding rebuild, one without a proper No. 1 centre or No. 1 defenceman and built heavy on wingers without defensive ability.

He was the centrepiece of a team with no centre, no real direction or future.

That he kept producing in that mess is part of the anomaly; that he was expected to do any more than that, given his background, is absurd.

Kessel is what he is. He is what he was when Brian Burke foolishly bet the farm on him back in 2009; he is what he was when his coaches in Ann Arbor tried in vain to get him to backcheck and forecheck and do everything else they?d come to expect from eager top prospects.

?I said to him ?You need to be a well-rounded player,? ? said David Quinn, Kessel?s coach with USA Hockey in those early years. ?He looked at me with this bewildered look and said ?Well I?ll just go out and get another goal.? ?

More than 10 years later, that?s still Kessel.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/leafs-beat/mirtle-leafs-viewed-dumping-kessel-as-essential-to-their-rebuild/article25224289/

 

[Deebo]

Rob Longley
‏@longleysunsport
#Pens GM Rutherford (to Pitt sports radio) on Phil quitting: ?I heard the opposite ... that he was a guy that was still trying.? #Leafs

 

[Kin]

He bombed his draft interviews; he slipped to fifth, despite having the point totals of a No. 1 overall pick.

I agree it's a good summation but this struck me as being a bit kind, implying that he fell only because of interviews.

Since 2000, there have only been 5 forwards drafted in the top 5 of the draft after having spent a season at a NCAA program(Heatley, Toews, Vanek, Kessel, Eichel). Kessel's freshman year saw him rank last among the five in goals and 4th in points, only beating Toews in that category.

So he fell in part because of a sort of disappointing season at Minnesota also. It wasn't just the mumbles.

 

[L K]

Rob Longley
‏@longleysunsport
#Pens GM Rutherford (to Pitt sports radio) on Phil quitting: ?I heard the opposite ... that he was a guy that was still trying.? #Leafs

We can never get a fair assessment of what went on off the ice, but I don't know how you come away from watching the second half of the season and think that Kessel was putting in the same level of effort.  I don't blame him in the way that cw had labelled him as the worst Leaf ever but the team quit and Kessel was among them.

 

[Peter D.]

Kessel was a phenomenal scorer but that's where it ended. He was nothing more than a one trick pony that could not contribute to your team in any other way. His defence was horrible as most point out but the one thing that infuriated me the most was him laying there on the bench with his head buried in his arms gasping for air. What example is that to your teammates who look for inspiration from your leaders at critical times?

Let's face it, Kessel was completely miscast in his role as a Leaf from the second Burke traded for him.  He's not a leader and he shouldn't be expected to be "the guy" on a team like he was here.  The fact that Burke built the team around him was a flaw right from the start.

Kessel can now go to Pittsburgh and be completely insulated by Crosby and Malkin, put up his 35 goals and potentially more, and no one will give a crap about all the other stuff.  He's a sniper plain and simple, and not much more should be expected.  And if he provides just that in Pittsburgh, I'm sure they'll be more than happy.

 

[bustaheims]

We can never get a fair assessment of what went on off the ice, but I don't know how you come away from watching the second half of the season and think that Kessel was putting in the same level of effort.  I don't blame him in the way that cw had labelled him as the worst Leaf ever but the team quit and Kessel was among them.

I agree that he, like pretty much everyone else on the team, quit in latter part of the season. I just feel like he was one of the last do so. It seemed to be like he was still trying long after many of his teammates clearly started mailing it in.

 

[cw]

I think a lot of folks had him behind Maatta and Pouliot. Some might argue Maatta isn't a prospect because he's in the NHL but he's only 20.

Well yeah he's been a regular NHL player for 2 seasons now so yes Maatta isn't a prospect anymore. He's also as virtually untouchable as any other Pittsburgh Penguin is.

Several of these numbers you cite like 11th or 13th are for a draft year - not overall prospect rankings. I haven't seen ESPN's nor ever relied on it. And Kapanen's stock has fallen since he was drafted. So how ESPN gets him that high has me quickly suspicious of their assessment. Any ranking that has him inside the top 40 overall would be suspect to me.

I think that I was pretty clear about them being draft rankings. I was just showing how highly rated he was just a year ago. As for ESPN vs. HF, again I'll take the opinion of a paid scout/analyst over the collection of people writing at HF, who are mostly just fans who haven't even watched a small fraction of the games as Cory Pronman (who wrote up ESPNs rankings). They're a fine resource to have especially considering that there isn't a lot of attention paid to prospects in the media post-draft, but they shouldn't be considered the bible.

To me, a "top flight" prospect is a guy who has a high probability of contributing at a top 6/top 4 level in the NHL. In my opinion, and I think the opinion of many, Kapanen isn't a high probability of making top 6 in the NHL - I'd rate his chances now as less than average from where he was picked because his stock has fallen some since he was drafted ... less than roughly 33% chance of making it in the NHL as a top 6 player. (I don't mean them trying him there - I mean him making a career playing there).

Virtually every scouting service out there had Kapanen as a top-6 winger with a very high offensive upside at the time of the draft. Did he have a Nylander-like post draft season? No. But few 18 years do. During training camp there was a lot of talk about him actually making the Penguins team. They were very impressed by his play. In the end they decided not to rush him and returned him to Finland where he played on a pretty bad team and had some ups and downs. That's not uncommon for 18 year olds playing in a European mens league. But he ended up leading his team in scoring during the playoffs (they were eliminated in 6 games). Then he came to finish his season in the AHL where he scored 5 points in 7 playoffs game. Again pretty good for a player his age playing in a brand new league/team.

I don't see how a season like that decimates a young players upside. Is he a lock to become a top-6 forward in the future? No, but you can say that about almost any prospect. You (seemingly arbitrarily) wrote that he only has a 33% chance of becoming a top-6 player like it was a bad thing. There's actually systems out there that attempt to nail down the chances of a prospect becoming an impact NHLer and 33% is a pretty good number to have for these kids.

An objective of a rebuild is to ship out veterans for youth. Kessel is a veteran. Maata is a good young player recovering from removal of a tumor. Regardless of where the heck Maata was playing, he is part of the Pens young talent and therefore, a reasonable consideration for compensation for Kessel as a young player. I don't see anything wrong with considering him in return for a top NHL player. There's no rules against it, etc. Nor do I see a problem with ranking him as one of the Pens top young players ahead of Kapanen. It underscores what the Leafs failed to pry away from the Pens in return for Kessel.

In Phil's case, obviously, his stock has slipped considerably. So the Leafs were not likely to get a young player of Maata's NHL proven talent in return. And they didn't.

As I recall, Kapanen had a good prospect camp that got them excited but wasn't as flashy in NHL training camp ...

33% isn't "arbitrary". It's roughly the statistical percentage of top 6/top 4 NHL players that come from around the 22nd position in the NHL draft. Since being drafted, many seem to feel Kapanen's stock has slipped some. Therefore, Kapanen's arguably slipped below the 33%.

That's not "bad" because he's still got some respectable chance of becoming a top 6 NHLer (even though it's not probable as it's less than 50%) - while many who were drafted below him do not or have a much slimmer chance. But I do not regard that as "top flight".

There's a pretty good chance the Leafs do not get a top 4/top 6 player in return for Kessel ... which kind of reflects how low Kessel's stock has sunk. Think about that. The best bid the Leafs got for him wasn't that hot.

 

[Bender]

Kessel was a phenomenal scorer but that's where it ended. He was nothing more than a one trick pony that could not contribute to your team in any other way. His defence was horrible as most point out but the one thing that infuriated me the most was him laying there on the bench with his head buried in his arms gasping for air. What example is that to your teammates who look for inspiration from your leaders at critical times?

Shouldn't his state of exhaustion be construed as a player who left it all on the ice and be an inspiration to his team mates?

I have no idea who's going to score for TO next year but I do think that none of us are going to be satisfied by all hustle, no results. Did Kadri get a single goal on the PP last year? How many of JVR's and Bozak's goals were assisted by Kessel or more precisely because of Kessel.

Kessel may have been a one trick pony but he was an excellent one.

It was a curious trade, lottery protected draft choice for an elite scorer, as it was unfolding I'm surprised there wasn't more riders against say Kapanen getting 20 goals, the trade would then be nullified or Harrington becoming an everyday player, in Shany some trust.

I've seen so many players catching their breath during the end of period interviews for god sakes. Even *gasp* Chicago players!

I'm not a hockey player but I do HIIT training from time to time - you give it your all for 30 seconds followed by a minute of rest and you do that for 20 minutes. That's a lot like playing hockey from a cardio perspective, I think, and I am gassed by the end.

 

[cw]

Rob Longley
‏@longleysunsport
#Pens GM Rutherford (to Pitt sports radio) on Phil quitting: ?I heard the opposite ... that he was a guy that was still trying.? #Leafs

lol  ;D

That explains the trade, doesn't it!!

The Leafs wanted Kessel's fanny out of town. Period. That's why they didn't wait until later - until his perceived value recovered some this season or beyond. You don't reward the last guy who stopped trying with that.

Not a big fan of DiManno but I think she got much more right than wrong in this article:
the star link
More crucially, they disburdened themselves of a one-trick pony whose goal production was never going to compensate for his shortcomings and character defects.
He lacked something, whatever the innate quality that separates the very good from the grand.
...
The downside was just as steep: disengaged, unmotivated, out of shape, lazy, last guy on the ice at practice and first guy off.

Now some can try to shoot that messenger but it's a very similar message that other folks wrote about in Boston and before Phil was drafted.

Rutherford didn't give up a ton in talent to let Phil disappear in the Pittsburgh media radar and play second fiddle finishing for Crosby (who can cover for Phil defensively)/Malkin. Rutherford knows he's getting a one trick pony that the Leafs will help him pay for.

 

[Deebo]

The Leafs wanted Kessel's fanny out of town. Period. That's why they didn't wait until later - until his perceived value recovered some this season or beyond. You don't reward the last guy who stopped trying with that.

The probably want Lupul, Bozak and Dion out of town too. Maybe Phil was the only one of the core that another team actually wants.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

An objective of a rebuild is to ship out veterans for youth. Kessel is a veteran. Maata is a good young player recovering from removal of a tumor. Regardless of where the heck Maata was playing, he is part of the Pens young talent and therefore, a reasonable consideration for compensation for Kessel as a young player. I don't see anything wrong with considering him in return for a top NHL player. There's no rules against it, etc. Nor do I see a problem with ranking him as one of the Pens top young players ahead of Kapanen. It underscores what the Leafs failed to pry away from the Pens in return for Kessel.

We've had this discussion before on these boards, even people who think the world of Phil should realize that somebody like Maatta wasn't a reasonable consideration in trade talks for Kessel. Maatta is a 20-year old number 1 defenceman who hasn't even touched his prime yet. Kessel is a 27-year old number 1 winger who will be exiting his prime soon. There's no situation where Pittsburgh would have even considered that for a second. That would be like trading a dollar in a crumbling economy for a dollar in a rising one. Any return for Kessel was going to be one of those 4 quarters for a dollar type trades. There was no other way around that. And that's not a reflection of Phil's declining value, that's just how trades like these work.

I've said all along that the most realistic return for Kessel was going to involve a 1st round draft pick and an non-elite but still good prospect. In my opinion, and in plenty of others as well, Kapanen was a top-2 prospect in Pittsburgh and has a bright future ahead of him. He's really as good of a prospect as we were realistically going to get in a trade that also brought in a 1st round draft pick. My problem with the trade isn't what we got in return it's what we had to add to the deal in order to get those assets.

 

[ZBBM]

Really, what this all comes down to is that Leafs are investing their future in the only coach in the league who is bigger than any star player on his team. And that coach was not about to put up with Kessel's crap.

 

[Deebo]

An objective of a rebuild is to ship out veterans for youth. Kessel is a veteran. Maata is a good young player recovering from removal of a tumor. Regardless of where the heck Maata was playing, he is part of the Pens young talent and therefore, a reasonable consideration for compensation for Kessel as a young player. I don't see anything wrong with considering him in return for a top NHL player. There's no rules against it, etc. Nor do I see a problem with ranking him as one of the Pens top young players ahead of Kapanen. It underscores what the Leafs failed to pry away from the Pens in return for Kessel.

We've had this discussion before on these boards, even people who think the world of Phil should realize that somebody like Maatta wasn't a reasonable consideration in trade talks for Kessel. Maatta is a 20-year old number 1 defenceman who hasn't even touched his prime yet. Kessel is a 27-year old number 1 winger who will be exiting his prime soon. There's no situation where Pittsburgh would have even considered that for a second. That would be like trading a dollar in a crumbling economy for a dollar in a rising one. Any return for Kessel was going to be one of those 4 quarters for a dollar type trades. There was no other way around that. And that's not a reflection of Phil's declining value, that's just how trades like these work.

I've said all along that the most realistic return for Kessel was going to involve a 1st round draft pick and an non-elite but still good prospect. In my opinion, and in plenty of others as well, Kapanen was a top-2 prospect in Pittsburgh and has a bright future ahead of him. He's really as good of a prospect as we were realistically going to get in a trade that also brought in a 1st round draft pick. My problem with the trade isn't what we got in return it's what we had to add to the deal in order to get those assets.

Nash didn't return Kreider or Stepan, they got Dubinsky and Anisimov.
Ryan didn't return Zibanejad or Lazar, they got Silfverberg and Noesen.

 

[cw]

An objective of a rebuild is to ship out veterans for youth. Kessel is a veteran. Maata is a good young player recovering from removal of a tumor. Regardless of where the heck Maata was playing, he is part of the Pens young talent and therefore, a reasonable consideration for compensation for Kessel as a young player. I don't see anything wrong with considering him in return for a top NHL player. There's no rules against it, etc. Nor do I see a problem with ranking him as one of the Pens top young players ahead of Kapanen. It underscores what the Leafs failed to pry away from the Pens in return for Kessel.

We've had this discussion before on these boards, even people who think the world of Phil should realize that somebody like Maatta wasn't a reasonable consideration in trade talks for Kessel. Maatta is a 20-year old number 1 defenceman who hasn't even touched his prime yet. Kessel is a 27-year old number 1 winger who will be exiting his prime soon. There's no situation where Pittsburgh would have even considered that for a second. That would be like trading a dollar in a crumbling economy for a dollar in a rising one. Any return for Kessel was going to be one of those 4 quarters for a dollar type trades. There was no other way around that. And that's not a reflection of Phil's declining value, that's just how trades like these work.

I've said all along that the most realistic return for Kessel was going to involve a 1st round draft pick and an non-elite but still good prospect. In my opinion, and in plenty of others as well, Kapanen was a top-2 prospect in Pittsburgh and has a bright future ahead of him. He's really as good of a prospect as we were realistically going to get in a trade that also brought in a 1st round draft pick. My problem with the trade isn't what we got in return it's what we had to add to the deal in order to get those assets.

Under the circumstances, I don't think the Leafs did that badly. Just because I'm assessing the value of the return lower than some doesn't mean I'm against what management did. To me, the return reflects more on the player than the management.

One might hope an $8 mil/yr franchise player would bring back more. In times gone by, a number of trades of top players have. Maata as a good young player - potential/likely future top 2 could have been given up maybe like Iginla, a top winger, went for Nieuwendyk.

But that isn't what happened here. The cap has changed things some. Kessel, as has been argued by many but not accepted by all here, is overpaid. And the Leafs were selling Kessel when his perceived value was at a low.

The Leafs didn't get a first cleanly - giving up a 2nd and taking back a 3rd... and they got Kapanen who might make top 6 and might not after holding onto 15% of Kessel's salary.

The Leafs put Kessel up for auction and took the best bid. I'm not unhappy with Leafs management. After what happened last season, players need to be held accountable to turn the corner from this mess. Hat tip to Leafs management for doing just that. Longer term, I think it will have some dividends beyond draft picks with the crew they move forward with.

 

[Tigger]

My problem with the trade isn't what we got in return it's what we had to add to the deal in order to get those assets.

If the reports of Scuderi and Kunitz turning down the trade are true, it makes Toronto look a little desperate to make the move. It's not the end of the world but it is annoying to see Kessel on the books until 2022.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

If the reports of Scuderi and Kunitz turning down the trade are true, it makes Toronto look a little desperate to make the move. It's not the end of the world but it is annoying to see Kessel on the books until 2022.

Yeah, I was a little more understanding when I heard of that. Still sucks but with those options off the table there likely wasn't another way.

My biggest problem then is something that cw just touched on. Again, my return for Kessel was always something like a top prospect and a 1st round draft pick plus some other stuff thrown in. So at first glance we got that prospect and draft pick. But instead of receiving a first round pick in a package for Kessel all we really did was move up from a 2nd rounder to a 1st rounder. There's a pretty big difference between those two.

 

[Kin]

My biggest problem then is something that cw just touched on. Again, my return for Kessel was always something like a top prospect and a 1st round draft pick plus some other stuff thrown in. So at first glance we got that prospect and draft pick. But instead of receiving a first round pick in a package for Kessel all we really did was move up from a 2nd rounder to a 1st rounder. There's a pretty big difference between those two.

Except the third rounder is likely to be closer to the second rounder than the second rounder is to the first rounder. So you could just as easily look at it like the Leafs get the first rounder but also agree to move down from what's likely to be a low second rounder to a high-ish third rounder which is much less hard to swallow.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

There's no way around the fact that the salary cap and the length of Kessel's contract heavily influenced Kessel's trade value.  I wonder what the trade return would have been if Kessel had, say, only 4 years left on his contract instead of 7.  I'm pretty comfortable saying Kessel is still a very good to excellent player 4 years from now.  I'm pretty uncomfortable saying that as long as 7 years from now.

 

[Frank E]

My biggest problem then is something that cw just touched on. Again, my return for Kessel was always something like a top prospect and a 1st round draft pick plus some other stuff thrown in. So at first glance we got that prospect and draft pick. But instead of receiving a first round pick in a package for Kessel all we really did was move up from a 2nd rounder to a 1st rounder. There's a pretty big difference between those two.

Except the third rounder is likely to be closer to the second rounder than the second rounder is to the first rounder. So you could just as easily look at it like the Leafs get the first rounder but also agree to move down from what's likely to be a low second rounder to a high-ish third rounder which is much less hard to swallow.

Whatever helps you sleep.