Kessel needs a push, but not out of town
It was unintentional comedy of the worst kind.
Phil Kessel was asked how he planned to spend the off-season, that five-month-plus vacation that the Maple Leafs have become accustomed to beginning this time of year, and he offered a straightfaced response. Speaking as the club cleaned out its dressing room on Monday, Kessel said he’d take some time off — because, you know, the previous few months of meaningless gliding weren’t enough of a break — before he gets back to work.
“Then I’ll go and train hard,” he said, “like I always do.”
You know what they say about the greats: They’re their own worst critics, which at least partly explains why Kessel can still only be considered a great talent brimming with untapped potential. Gifted with 50-goal skills, he just hung his head through a 25-goal dud. He should be, at age 27, in the heart of his prime. Instead, he is slouching through a steep decline. And now he also appears to be in denial, at least publicly, about the well-established idea that his off-season work ethic is a considerable part of the problem.
Even Kessel’s biggest allies shake their heads in disappointment at how he has refused to mature as a pro.
When you consider all that, and if you listened to Leafs president Brendan Shanahan’s state-of-the-franchise news conference Monday, you could easily get the impression that Kessel isn’t long for Toronto.
Shanahan, in his deftly crafted remarks, said he believes Toronto’s “sophisticated” fans understand that the impending rebuild will take “as long as it takes.”
“But what I don’t think they can understand is people who go out and give half efforts and people that don’t appear to enjoy playing here,” Shanahan said.
Only one player’s image came popping to mind for most Leaf loyalists: That’d be No. 81, His Royal Highness of the Half Efforts, Baron of Bad Body Language, Sultan of Diddly Squat. If you watched Kessel huffing and puffing on the bench between shifts for most of this season, you could almost see the thought bubble forming above his head: “I’d rather be deep-sea fishing.”
How could Shanahan not want to eradicate Kessel’s joyless, uncommitted presence from Leafland, and pronto? Surely it’s a fait accompli.
Maybe it is. But if I’m Shanahan, I don’t trade Phil Kessel any time soon. I don’t trade him this summer. I don’t trade him this fall.
The time for trading Kessel, for cashing in on his cache as a known-quantity goal scorer while glossing over the unseemly habits that were well-known to insiders but less exposed, came and went a while ago. The idea that you might have swapped Kessel in a package that could have brought back a first-line centre to build around — well, that made sense when Kessel hadn’t damaged his reputation around the league with a mail-it-in debacle. Trading Kessel now would mean trading him from a position of maximum weakness. His stock has never been lower. His critics have never been louder.
Instead, if I’m Shanahan, I take Kessel at his word when he says he’s going to train hard this summer. (And I suspend him immediately if he arrives at training camp carrying anything in excess of a pre-agreedupon body-fat percentage).
If I’m Shanahan, after all, I’ve got plenty to do. I’ve got a general manager and a coaching staff to hire. And I’ve got a long list of lesser players to trade.
It’s no secret what kind of team the Leafs want to build here. Mark Hunter, one of the team’s two interim GMs, has a track record of prizing skilled, speedy types. Look at the lineage Hunter procured running the OHL’s London Knights, from Patrick Kane to Nazem Kadri, from Max Domi to Mitch Marner, the latter a shoo-in to be an early first- round pick in the June draft.
Ditto Kyle Dubas, the team’s other interim GM: As an advocate for play-driving puck possessors, Dubas is essentially a backer of heady, crafty speedsters who can make things happen when they get a step on the opposition.
Brian Burke wanted pugnacity, belligerence and truculence. The new Toronto front office favours artistry, quickness and intelligence. Which current Leafs can claim to cover off all three categories, more or less? There’s Kadri. There’s mobile back-enders Morgan Rielly and Jake Gardiner (even if the latter’s a little short on the on-ice IQ). And then there’s Kessel.
If the Leafs win Saturday’s draft lottery, this isn’t even a discussion. If the ping-pong balls go Toronto’s way and surefire No. 1 pick Connor McDavid becomes a Maple Leaf — well, the rebuild plan changes. As Shanahan told reporters on Monday, smiling giddily as he spoke: “It would certainly speed things up.”
McDavid’s arrival wouldn’t simply have Hogtown’s fans dancing in the streets — it would also rejuvenate Kessel, who has been stagnating on a line centred by Tyler Bozak. Just because Bozak is Kessel’s good pal doesn’t mean he has been good for Kessel. The idea that Kessel would be playing alongside a world-class talent — something he hasn’t been able to say since he arrived here in 2009 — it would rev the enthusiasm of even the biggest NHL sadsack.
Would Kessel be a bad influence on the kid and his young peers? It’d be a danger. But people who know McDavid say he’s simply too levelheaded, too determined, to be pulled down. Instead, there’s plenty of reason to believe he would lift Kessel up by simply absorbing a huge share of the spotlight.
If the 9.5 per cent dream doesn’t come true, keeping Kessel around is no panacea. Shanahan made pains to insist he doesn’t see one man as the reason for Toronto’s lack of character. “It has to come from a group,” the president said. “This isn’t to single one guy out.”
Maybe. But ask anyone who has coached elite athletes and they’ll tell you: It’s nearly impossible to get a group to fully buy in when the highest-paid player is only half-invested.
Still, trading your best asset for a fraction of his one-time value doesn’t make much sense. Instead, Shanahan needs to do whatever he can to make sure Kessel shows up in shape to training camp. He needs to make sure, by any means necessary, that Kessel comes out flying next season. Maybe Kessel simply won’t make a late-career transformation like Raptors guard Kyle Lowry, who went from doughy malcontent to franchise engine. But it’s a makeover to aspire to. And there are optimists around the team who believe Kessel may have been shaken enough by the misery of this season to look in the mirror and make a change.
Whether that happens or not, Shanahan, to use Bay Street lingo, at least needs to pump Kessel’s stock before he dumps Kessel’s stock. If the rebuild is going to take as long as it takes, there’s time to offer up one last shot at persuading Kessel to work as hard as he insists he does.