Kalman: Phil Kessel Proves Everyone Right
By Matt Kalman, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Bruins and their fans should be grateful for Phil Kessel's run to the Stanley Cup championship with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and not just because the Bruins will now select 29th at the NHL Draft with the first-round pick Boston picked up from San Jose in the Martin Jones trade last summer.
Kessel's 10 goals and 12 assists in 24 postseason games didn't impress the voters enough to prevent them from giving the Conn Smythe Trophy to captain Sidney Crosby, but the speedy right winger proved that the Bruins were right about him all along.
Phil Kessel is an elite talent with high-end speed in the open ice and a lethal wrist shot. When he puts his speed and mind to it, he can back check pretty well. He's never going to be a physical presence and for much of the season he's not going to bother putting his speed or mind into the defensive part of the game. That's not a knock on Kessel because not everyone can be Patrice Bergeron just like not everyone can be Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin or Duncan Keith. It's the job of the general manager to put together the right mix of players to form a championship team, not to find 23 perfect all-around players.
Teams can win championships with players like Kessel, and that was never even an argument. Kessel isn't a No. 1 star on a team and even on the current Penguins roster he's probably only fourth or fifth in terms of star power and all-around impact on the game. Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and both goaltenders – Matt Murray and Marc-Andre Fleury – are the game changers and the faces of the Penguins' championship run. Kessel is more than happy to reside in the shadows and no one should begrudge him that right as long as he does the right things on the ice and plays to the best of his own capabilities.
The Bruins had no problem fitting Kessel into their organization for years to come when he hit restricted free agency after a 36-goal 2008-09 season. But general manager Peter Chiarelli recognized at the time that like every athlete, Kessel had flaws. One of those flaws was the inability to carry a team or be a leader. Chiarelli locked up center David Krejci for three years at a $3.75 million cap hit that summer and wanted Kessel to re-up with Boston for something close to that. With Zdeno Chara and Bergeron nearing the end of their contracts and cap flexibility of the utmost importance if the Bruins were going to compete for a title in the years ahead, Chiarelli couldn't tie up too much cap space with a third-year player who wasn't an all-around superstar and couldn't set the bar too high with Kessel's contract before locking up Boston's more vital parts.
In a cap-free environment, barring financial restrictions from ownership, the Bruins would've probably kept Kessel. Assuming he could've gotten over his tiffs with coach Claude Julien, Kessel would've fit well as a supporting player on a team featuring Bergeron, Krejci, Chara, Milan Lucic and Tim Thomas. Kessel would've been the high-end talent in the secondary role and probably would've produced enough to cash in big time when he hit unrestricted free agency down the road. Whether his stint in Boston would've featured a Stanley Cup title, no one can know.
As was his right, Kessel thought he was a bigger star and should be paid as such. He didn't pay as much mind to what his salary would do to the Bruins' efforts to keep the core of the team together and supplement it down the road. He used what little leverage he had to force the trade to Toronto, and we know how that played out. Up until the Bruins' decision to trade Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton, the Kessel trade looked like the steal of the century (for the Bruins) regardless of how much Kessel produced. The trade was the product of Chiarelli's restraint in not giving in to Kessel's demands, the GM's ability to get a pretty rich return and then the luck of the Maple Leafs landing Boston's pick in the No. 2 slot.
Kessel wound up costing the Maple Leafs $5.4 million against their cap for five seasons. He produced but the team around him never developed. He became vilified because he was being paid as a superstar but wasn't able to live up to that billing on or off the ice. He'd always been socially awkward and now he was being asked to be the face of a mismanaged Original Six franchise. His cap hit rose to $8 million with his next extension that started in the 2014-15 season. He became easy to pick on, as few in Toronto chose to accept him for who he was and what he was capable of doing. He was punished for the role the Maple Leafs cast him and the money they paid him. Years after Kessel won the Masterton Trophy for his perseverance during his battle with cancer as a rookie with the Bruins, Kessel's desire and attitude unfairly became cannon fodder for pundits from Toronto and beyond.
Kessel even earned a reputation as a guy who was unable to come through in big games. He had four goals and two assists in the seven-game Toronto series against Boston. Had the Maple Leafs built a team capable of consistently reaching the playoffs, they probably would've benefited from more performances like that one from 2013 and the one he produced for Pittsburgh this season.
Phi Kessel hasn't changed all that much. He's older and maybe a little wiser. His offensive game has gotten slightly more diverse. Nonetheless, he still can cause coaches gray hairs and can bring people out of their seats within a season, within a month, within a game. Put him on a team with Crosby, Malkin, Matt Cullen and Chris Kunitz; put him on a line with Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin; and spell out his responsibilities and don't expect too much from him as a three-zone player, and Kessel will make a major impact at important times.
If Kessel's recent snub at the hands of Team USA for a spot on the roster for the World Cup of Hockey is any indication, Kessel still has the wrong type of reputation for a player with his type of elite skills. That snub and all the boos from Toronto and the "Thank You Kessel" chants from Boston fans and complaints from pundits don't matter anymore.
The Bruins got their Cup without Kessel in 2011. They may have mismanaged things since then, but their Kessel gamble paid off. And now Kessel got his Cup without the Bruins. Everyone was right.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.
