link to terrible article
Some of the problem with the above article is how it was edited.
Article before editing
but even with the original, I have issues.
Traikos finds an old ExLeaf who hasn't watched Kessel play. He describes Kessel to him with last season's criticism as someone
"who has been criticized at times for not working hard in his own end, but whose accurate shot has resulted in 16 goals and 32 points in 25 games."
The exLeaf who has never seen Kessel compares Traikos' description of Kessel to exLeaf Gordie Drillon describing Drillon this way:
"He used to park himself in front of the opposing net. That's how he got his goals," Stanowski recalled. "He never battled for the puck. You had to pass it to him, and then he would take his shot and score."
From what I saw of a few clips and heard, Drillon was a one way player and basically a goal suck. The HHoF describes him this way:
HHoF link
Drillon's style of hockey was to park himself in front of the net and tip shots and swat at rebounds, and not worry about back-checking. "I spent ten years playing in the slot before anyone invented a name for it," he said later.
which is nowhere close to what Kessel usually does when he scores. Kessel is much more often on the move and takes the puck to the scoring areas of the ice and then let's it go. He works for his goals and doesn't just stand there letting others do the work so he can just bang them in (like Esposito, Ciccarelli and Andrechuk did many times as the article notes).
Further the edited article version ignores the improvement in Kessel's two way game this season - which was developing when he showed up in Toronto and his effort in that area was not as bad as folks made out in my opinion.
The article leaves a negative impression of Kessel and a false impression of how he plays the game. It's a pathetically bad article no matter which version is read while the edited one is obviously worse. Sorry for wasting a couple of minutes of your life but I didn't feel Traikos horrible writing and the Nat'l Post's awful editing deserved a free pass.
