KESSEL DEAL ADDS TO FRENZY
Winger sent from Leafs to Penguins as rest of NHL dips into free agent pool
The Toronto Maple Leafs finally found Phil Kessel a centre. Well, two of them, actually. By sending Kessel to the Pittsburgh Penguins in a free agency-trumping six-player trade, one of the most talented scorers in the NHL will now be receiving passes from either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.
It is huge upgrade for a winger whose failings in Toronto always came attached with an asterisk. After all, what could you reasonably expect from someone who had to play alongside Tyler Bozak? That excuse, along with many others, no longer applies anymore.
If Kessel cannot score 50 goals while riding shotgun on a line with Crosby or Malkin, expect the same old criticisms regarding his laziness, fitness level and attitude to once again rise to the surface.
At the same time, if he succeeds and wins a Stanley Cup, you can also expect those “thank you Kessel!” chants that the Leafs heard every time they played in Boston to catch on in Pittsburgh.
Either way, July 1 is a date hockey fans will remember for a while.
With a free agent crop that was headlined by second-pairing defencemen, third-line wingers and past-their-prime veterans, the start of free agency was not supposed to be a typically big day on the calendar. But we should have known better.
Whether it was for household names or depth players, general managers could not resist paying high prices on mid-level additions that might end up hurting rather than helping in the long run.
The Chicago Blackhawks started it all a day early when they made their annual post-Cup purge and sent Brandon Saad, as well as two prospects, to the Columbus Blue Jackets for Artem Anisimov, prospect Marko Dano and a pair of spare parts.
It was an unexpectedly expected move by general manager Stan Bowman, who had to clear cap space to sign pending free agents, but instead took out two birds with one stone and traded a 22-year-old budding star forward who was asking for a raise.
“I was a little bit shocked and obviously a little sad to go,” Saad said in a conference call after being traded two weeks after winning the Stanley Cup.
While Chicago got a little worse, others got significantly little better — on paper, that is. Prices for defencemen were steep: Edmonton signed Andrej Sekera to a six-year contract worth $33 million US; Detroit signed Mike Green for three years, $18 million US; and Colorado signed Francois Beauchemin for three years, $13.5 million US.
Calgary added to the Battle of Alberta by signing forward Michael Frolik to a five-year, $21.5-million US contract, while Montreal got bigger and younger by trading Brandon Prust and a fifth-round pick to Vancouver for Zack Kassian.
But it was Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, who a few days earlier predicted that “we won't be shaking the hockey world,” who ended up causing the biggest tremors.
The trade — which involved the Leafs retaining $1.2 million US annually in salary and also sending a second-round pick (originally acquired from Pittsburgh) to the Penguins in exchange for forward Nick Spaling, 2014 firstround winger Kasperi Kapanen, defence prospect Scott Harrington, as well as a first-round pick in 2016 and a third-round pick in 2017 — sent huge messages to the respective franchises.
“This is really about a recognition on our part that what we've been doing here and the group that we had assembled here wasn't getting the job done and wasn't good enough,” said Shanahan, who also signed free agent defenceman Matt Hunwick and forwards P.A. Parenteau and Mark Arcobello.
“We are here to build a team that is capable of winning a Stanley Cup and there are no shortcuts to go around doing that.”
It was far from a perfect trade for the Leafs, who probably would have wanted Derrick Pouliot and preferred not to retain any salary. But in moving Kessel, the message was that the rebuild is for real. Kessel is the first piece to go. But he is far from the last.
In acquiring a 27-year-old forward who has scored the fourthmost goals in the last six years, the Penguins sent the opposite message.
While the roster became a little younger by losing defenceman Paul Martin, who signed with San Jose for four years and $19.4 million US, Pittsburgh is thinking about today — not tomorrow — with this trade. Kessel gives a team that has sputtered recently in the playoffs an offensive boost that neither Chris Kunitz nor Patric Hornqvist could provide. And despite only playing in just one playoff round with the Leafs, Kessel has produced 13 goals and 21 points in 22 post-season games.
“He doesn't have to be ‘The Guy' here,” Penguins GM Jim Rutherford, who had tried to trade for Saad, said in a news conference. “When you look at his goal-scoring ability and his speed, that was really the ideal player we were looking for.”
Like all deals, opinions subject to change.