Kessel fits fine with Penguins
His tenure here has been turbulent at times. Between whistles, Kessel sometimes finds himself in animated conversations with linemates. He doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with coach Mike Sullivan, leading to rumors this offseason that the Penguins could trade him. And he won’t be in the running for the Selke Trophy any time soon.
But the numbers speak for themselves: 221 points in 246 regular-season games, 19 big playoff goals, the best Penguins power play ever and, last but not least, two Stanley Cups.
“He’s a gamer, and, when it’s time to perform, he comes ready to play,” defenseman Justin Schultz said. “He knows what it takes to win now. And he sees the game so well.”
‘The best in the league?’
This question was raised at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in recent weeks: Has Kessel become a more complete player in Pittsburgh, or is it simply that his passing and other team-first qualities finally are being recognized now that he has won two Stanley Cups alongside other elite players such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang?
After all, this is the same guy whom the Toronto Maple Leafs three years ago essentially gave away to the Penguins as they looked to shed salary and change their losing culture. The media hammered Kessel on his way out of Toronto, calling him a bad teammate, citing him for a lack of professionalism and, infamously, accusing him of eating too many hot dogs.
“It doesn’t matter that the Leafs didn’t get much for Kessel,” the Toronto Sun wrote.
In Pittsburgh, Kessel quickly won over the fan base, becoming a folk hero with clutch goals and snarky one-liners and that tongue-incheek photo he shared on social media last summer, the one of him grinning next to a Stanley Cup filled with frankfurters.
He is well-liked among teammates for those same reasons. But they also know he brings much more to the table than blazing speed, a lethal shot and a dry sense of humor.
“He’s probably the best passer in the league,” Penguins assistant coach Mark Recchi said. “He doesn’t get enough credit for it because his shot is so tremendous.”
“Wait,” asked a reporter while glancing over at Crosby’s locker, “the best in the league?”
Recchi briefly paused to reconsider before replying, “I’d say he’s right up there, yeah.”
Since Kessel arrived in 2015, only 17 NHL players — and one Penguin, Crosby — have dished more assists. Of his 137 assists the previous three seasons, 88 were the primary assist, meaning Kessel was the last guy to touch the puck before the goal-scorer got it.
Kessel’s playmaking ability finally started to get proper attention last season, when he often quarterbacked the Penguins’ power-play from the left circle, feeding the point and firing the puck through traffic for back-door tap-ins. Kessel set career highs with 42 power-play points and 30 assists on the man advantage — 20 of them primaries.
The Penguins scored on a stunning 26.2 percent of their power plays — first in the NHL, best in franchise history and among the highest percentages in this millennium.
“I definitely don’t think his passing has changed,” said his likely linemate, Carl Hagelin. “Since he was 5 years old, he’s been a good passer. It’s been there his whole life.”
New surroundings
OK, fine, Kessel has always filled up stat sheets. So have other parts of his game grown?
Few people on the planet are as qualified as Recchi to discuss Kessel’s development. Midway through Kessel’s third and final season in Boston, when he had a breakout year with 60 points in 70 games, the Bruins acquired Recchi in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Kessel led the Bruins in playoff goals before they were eliminated in the second round.
“When I played with him that season, he played the right way there,” Recchi said.
But unable to find common ground on a contract, the Bruins sent Kessel to the Maple Leafs. He scored 181 goals, with 213 assists, in six seasons in Toronto. But the All-Star right winger was a minus-80 over that span while the Maple Leafs made just one postseason cameo.
After Mike Babcock took over the Toronto bench in 2015, Kessel was put on the trade block. General manager Jim Rutherford, in his second year here and looking to shake up the Penguins after another premature playoff exit, did his due diligence. Among those he consulted with was Recchi, then the team’s player development coach.
“Obviously as you get older, you mature and you get stronger, you get a little wiser. He’s definitely done that,” Recchi said. “It’s been great watching him over the past [12] years now, with how skilled he is. We thought with Sid and Malkin here and Letang, this was a real good fit for him, that he could come in and just play. And it’s been awesome.”
Kessel has thrived as a secondary star after faltering as the face of the franchise in Toronto. He usually has been deployed on the second line with Malkin or as the most lethal third-line winger in the league, giving him more favorable matchups.
The Penguins also like to trot him out for offensive faceoffs. From 2015-18, his 5on-5 zone-start percentage is 64.4. It was around 50 percent in Boston and Toronto. That also probably says something about how the Penguins feel about his defense. But when Kessel is engaged on both ends of the ice, he can make a positive impact on defense, too.
There was a glimpse of that — and his competitive spirit — during a back-andforth training camp scrimmage that pitted Kessel and Malkin against a squad led by Crosby. At one point, Kessel raced back in transition to prevent a goal with a welltimed stick lift.
“I think his defensive commitment has gotten better,” Hagelin said. “That’s hard to say, though. In 2016, I think in the playoffs he worked as hard as anyone defensively.”
Keeping pace
From his vantage point, Pierre McGuire — the opinionated NBC analyst who was a scout and then an assistant coach with the Penguins when they won their first two Cups in 1991 and 1992 — feels Kessel has become a more complete player these past three years.
“When you’re a part of something special, and they’ve obviously won together, I think you’re always more focused on keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak,” McGuire said. “Sidney Crosby is probably the hardest-working player in the NHL. His teammates recognize that. I think if you’re part of a group with him, you want to keep up.
“You don’t want to slack off. In Phil’s case, the coaches have a real good understanding about how he interacts with the team. I think Phil has become a much better allaround player because he wanted to keep up with everybody else in the organization.”
Kessel, predictably, was not in the mood for introspection when asked about his growth as a person and player. It didn’t help that the Steelers were about to kick off.
“I want to win, right?” a chuckling Kessel said. “I’ve tried to do whatever to help the team win, and we’ve been pretty successful the past couple of years — and, hopefully, we get back to it again.”
Some of his teammates, however, were willing to give a glimpse at what’s behind the gruff public persona. Hagelin says Kessel is “caring” and “very generous” and “actually a sincere person,” in addition to being one of the unintentionally “funniest guys around.” Cullen called him a “great” friend and teammate whom “we all love having around.”
The right-wing rockets in transition, the out-of-nowhere game-turning goals and the Phil-being-Phil moments in the locker room help.
But don’t discount those pretty passes.