Kukla's Korner Hockey
Trade Phil Kessel
by Paul on 01/28/13 at 12:00 PM ET
Comments (2)
from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,
In 239 games with the Leafs, Kessel has potted 99 goals. Basically, that averages out to 33 goals per season, a number only 18 NHL players (2 per cent) hit last season and only 13 (1.4 per cent) did the season before that.
Kessel does well what very few NHLers do well. So, even with warts, he has great value, particularly to a team strong enough that he can play in a supporting role, as a secondary scoring threat.
Nonis, if he is to succeed, must put his stamp on this team in relatively short order, and must articulate a new direction fans can readily understand and embrace.
He has the patience and foresight to do that. Whether the new GM has the support of the new ownership, well, nobody knows.
But trading Kessel is the likeliest first step to the needed reset.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Toronto Maple Leafs, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: phil+kessel
Comments
He is a good player, not a great player, but definitely worth having on your team. It doesn’t help he is an American in a big Canadian market, if I were him I would get out.
Posted by timbits on 01/29/13 at 12:05 AM ET
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This is stupid. The best way to get better isn’t to trade away your best player. It is to get more good players. Kessel is Toronto’s best player. Further, any attempt to look at him statistically that looks only at goals and ignores other factors is pointless (in fact it is done because Kessel gets more assists than goals and they can be ignored). Even at that case it puts him in the top 1-2% of the NHL - which with 30 teams means he should be the best player on a given team.
The Toronto media is stupid. Brian Burke came in and started a rebuild. They didn’t win while rebuilding so they got him fired. New GM, they suggest another rebuild to set the timeline back a few more years instead of carrying on with the Burke one. If he rebuilds again, the team will go nowhere again and he should get fired too.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 01/28/13 at 03:34 PM ET