Tank Nation UNITE!!!

[mr grieves]

Wait a minute.  Kessel has mailed it in every game of his career when it comes to playing defense, winning puck battles, backchecking, and all kinds of other things that involve playing without the puck.  I keep hearing about what an elite athlete he is, how he cares so much, etc., but he apparently can't be bothered to put in more than a minimal effort for any part of the game that doesn't involve scoring.

I dunno. Here's where I start to think frustration with a crappy team turns into too harsh an assessment of one of the few good players on it. Kessel's been the only guy on his line who's ever bothered to backcheck with any regularity. You can find plenty of video of him leaving the zone early, sure, but there's a lot more of Bozak, JvR, and Lupul floating back into the zone as goals are scored.

 

[freer]

Wait a minute.  Kessel has mailed it in every game of his career when it comes to playing defense, winning puck battles, backchecking, and all kinds of other things that involve playing without the puck.  I keep hearing about what an elite athlete he is, how he cares so much, etc., but he apparently can't be bothered to put in more than a minimal effort for any part of the game that doesn't involve scoring.

Kessel and Dion are both good players  IMO but I am also under the opinion that TML does not start to win until both are gone. I hope they trade both for picks and prospects

I dunno. Here's where I start to think frustration with a crappy team turns into too harsh an assessment of one of the few good players on it. Kessel's been the only guy on his line who's ever bothered to backcheck with any regularity. You can find plenty of video of him leaving the zone early, sure, but there's a lot more of Bozak, JvR, and Lupul floating back into the zone as goals are scored.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Sympathy for the millionaire: It must be frustrating for a player when his scoring slump coincides with a precipitous fall in the standings, and, while no one wants to see a professional athlete dispirited by the team around him and mailing in the back end of a season -- that "mood" is offensive when he's making $10m this year -- I can't really fault the guy for being able to do math.

Wait a minute.  Kessel has mailed it in every game of his career when it comes to playing defense, winning puck battles, backchecking, and all kinds of other things that involve playing without the puck. 

Riiiight.  As I've said before, must be awfully easy to score in the NHL if you can do it while mailing in "every game of your career" without the puck.  Guess it's all those elite playmakers he plays with who get him the puck because he does nothing and puts in no effort when he doesn't have it.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

[tweet]577828890598596608[/tweet]

Stop playing these guys together! Or no, keep playing these guys together! Ah, I'm so confused!

 

[Chris]

[tweet]577828890598596608[/tweet]

Stop playing these guys together! Or no, keep playing these guys together! Ah, I'm so confused!

Is it just stubborness or is it part of a brilliant strategic plan? Tough to be sure. Certainly not doing anything to help the trade value of certain players.

 

[Peter D.]

I'm all for moving Kessel.  His uninspired play and lack of production the last 40 games has made me sour on him.  But I certainly don't want it to be a deal where it's a matter of simply trying to remove him from the team and gaining the cap space.

Elite talented players like Kessel are extremely hard to find.  There will come a time when the team will say that it needs a sniper like Kessel, and they already have him.  It'll take at least three to five years for the team to draft and develop a player that will do what Kessel has been able to do (besides this abnormal 40-game stretch).  And you try and sign a Kessel in free agency, which is also becoming near impossible because the likes of him don't hit the market, and you're paying less than $8 million.  So for those reasons, I'm content with keeping him around.

Now, if the team can get that solid youngster and/or pick(s) for him, then move him.  But it would be downright horrible asset management to fritter the team's best asset (2015 1st rounder and possibly Rielly aside) just because.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I'm all for moving Kessel.  His uninspired play and lack of production the last 40 games has made me sour on him.  But I certainly don't want it to be a deal where it's a matter of simply trying to remove him from the team and gaining the cap space.

Elite talented players like Kessel are extremely hard to find.  There will come a time when the team will say that it needs a sniper like Kessel, and they already have him.  It'll take at least three to five years for the team to draft and develop a player that will do what Kessel has been able to do (besides this abnormal 40-game stretch).  And you try and sign a Kessel in free agency, which is also becoming near impossible because the likes of him don't hit the market, and you're paying less than $8 million.  So for those reasons, I'm content with keeping him around.

Now, if the team can get that solid youngster and/or pick(s) for him, then move him.  But it would be downright horrible asset management to fritter the team's best asset (2015 1st rounder and possibly Rielly aside) just because.

And it's not like it's only Kessel, basically the whole team aside from some young guys/AHLers don't look like they want to be there.  This is from Anthony Petrielli's latest Leafs Notebook for Maple Leaf Hotstove, taken from a Pierre Lebrun article:

They fired a good ? albeit tough ? coach in Randy Carlyle before the midway point in the season and declared that his replacement was only a temp. Then they essentially told their players that they are unwanted and proceeded to trade away as many as they could. Is it really a surprise to anyone that their season has descended into chaos?

http://mapleleafshotstove.com/2015/03/17/leafs-notebook-march-17/

And really, what incentive is there for them to go full out from now until the end of the season?  I know everyone here is the best employee that ever worked and never takes sick days and has never slacked off at work (definitely never posted on TMLFans.ca) and has never had a toxic work environment where it affected them.  I mean, we all know that we're better than this team.  So leaving that aside...unless you're trying to make the NHL, you've got players playing where a large portion of the fanbase wants (a) the team to lose to get a higher pick while at the same time (b) showing that they're trying as hard as they possibly can.

 

[Chris]

Elite talented players like Kessel are extremely hard to find.  There will come a time when the team will say that it needs a sniper like Kessel, and they already have him.  It'll take at least three to five years for the team to draft and develop a player that will do what Kessel has been able to do (besides this abnormal 40-game stretch).  And you try and sign a Kessel in free agency, which is also becoming near impossible because the likes of him don't hit the market, and you're paying less than $8 million.  So for those reasons, I'm content with keeping him around.

From what I've seen, we may already have a Kessel-replacement in the system...Nylander. Perhaps he never develops to that level, but he seems to have a very similar skill set.

 

[LuncheonMeat]

Elite talented players like Kessel are extremely hard to find.  There will come a time when the team will say that it needs a sniper like Kessel, and they already have him.  It'll take at least three to five years for the team to draft and develop a player that will do what Kessel has been able to do (besides this abnormal 40-game stretch).  And you try and sign a Kessel in free agency, which is also becoming near impossible because the likes of him don't hit the market, and you're paying less than $8 million.  So for those reasons, I'm content with keeping him around.

From what I've seen, we may already have a Kessel-replacement in the system...Nylander. Perhaps he never develops to that level, but he seems to have a very similar skill set.

And if the Leafs are indeed 3-5 years from contending, Phil Kessel in his early 30s worries me a little bit.  Like Peter said, guys like him don't hit the market often which makes me hopeful he fetches a good return.

 

[Boston Leaf]

Well Bill Watters thinks the Leafs would get a an average pick a roster player with bad contract and would have to retain almost have of Kessls salary.. the senile old coot

 

[Highlander]

It seems that Potvin and I are the only two whom defend Phil. This season is an aberration,  let let him hit the reset button with a new coach and hopefully a decent Centre.
When you say "Rebuild", you do need some players to rebuild around.

 

[Chris]

Well Bill Watters thinks the Leafs would get a an average pick a roster player with bad contract and would have to retain almost have of Kessls salary.. the senile old coot

No way...are you sure he wasn't talking about Phaneuf? Though even with him, I think the return will be decent.

 

[ZBBM]

Wait a minute.  Kessel has mailed it in every game of his career when it comes to playing defense, winning puck battles, backchecking, and all kinds of other things that involve playing without the puck.  I keep hearing about what an elite athlete he is, how he cares so much, etc., but he apparently can't be bothered to put in more than a minimal effort for any part of the game that doesn't involve scoring.

I dunno. Here's where I start to think frustration with a crappy team turns into too harsh an assessment of one of the few good players on it. Kessel's been the only guy on his line who's ever bothered to backcheck with any regularity. You can find plenty of video of him leaving the zone early, sure, but there's a lot more of Bozak, JvR, and Lupul floating back into the zone as goals are scored.

I can't agree with the part about backchecking regularly, but sure, the rest of that line has been awful too.  It boggles my mind why Horachek doesn't keep them apart.

 

[LuncheonMeat]

Well Bill Watters thinks the Leafs would get a an average pick a roster player with bad contract and would have to retain almost have of Kessls salary.. the senile old coot

No way...are you sure he wasn't talking about Phaneuf? Though even with him, I think the return will be decent.

I used to really like Watters when he and Joe Bowen were calling games together, but the guy is an absolute moron these days.  I think he still fancies himself an authority and an insider, but I think those days passed him by long ago.  Watters was saying that with both Kessel and Phaneuf the Leafs would have to retain most of their salary in order to move them.  You know, cuz he has his finger on the pulse of the game still.

I heard an interview with Watters on TSN a couple of weeks ago, where they had Jonas Siegel on another line at the same time.  That was pretty entertaining as Siegel really had a tough time hiding his disdain for him.

 

[Boston Leaf]

Watters comes on Sirius radio on the NHL channel every Monday and Friday as a guest.. All he does is bash every Leaf (especially 3/81) and everythign they do. He even thought what they did to pick up a plyer like Norton who won't play for Clarkson was one of the dumbest things he ever heard of. He has nothing nice to ever say about them.. It sounds like he should hang out wiht Ron Wilson more. Wilson is now going dow the same bitter path

 

[ZBBM]

Sympathy for the millionaire: It must be frustrating for a player when his scoring slump coincides with a precipitous fall in the standings, and, while no one wants to see a professional athlete dispirited by the team around him and mailing in the back end of a season -- that "mood" is offensive when he's making $10m this year -- I can't really fault the guy for being able to do math.

Wait a minute.  Kessel has mailed it in every game of his career when it comes to playing defense, winning puck battles, backchecking, and all kinds of other things that involve playing without the puck.  I keep hearing about what an elite athlete he is, how he cares so much, etc., but he apparently can't be bothered to put in more than a minimal effort for any part of the game that doesn't involve scoring.

Riiiight.  As I've said before, must be awfully easy to score in the NHL if you can do it while mailing in "every game of your career" without the puck.  Guess it's all those elite playmakers he plays with who get him the puck because he does nothing and puts in no effort when he doesn't have it.

Nice try, but you aren't David Copperfield and that means you aren't allowed to just make the rest of my post disappear.  I put it back together for you, and added some blueface just to make sure the context is clear.

 

[pmrules]

Here is the thing with Kessel - short of drafting McDavid, where is this number 1 center with Skill / Size / Defensive acumen going to come from?  It is clear to me, that Kessel's center/line mates need all 3 of the above attributes.  And this centre needs to be here for the next 3 years which are an approximation of Kessel's remaining prime performance years (assuming the 30 + years are the starting to decline years of Kessel - which is of course debatable). 

Is this 1st line Centre Kadri?  Is it Nylander?  O'Reilly?  Eric Staal?  Is it Strome/Marner?  McDavid? Some one else?  I don't know. 

I'm all for keeping him, shortcomings and all, provided there is a plan to not have Bozak centering him.

For all those defending Kessel, I don't see a valid plan to say how we make full use of Kessel as the 2nd/3rd best forward, and how we acquire such asset if he is not already in the system.  I'm not an advocate of giving Kessel away for nothing/scraps/cap space - I'd much rather keep him.  That's a huge mega-step backwards - he is too good of an offsensive player to give up for garbage. 

However, if there is no plan to obtain such a centre for him, then he is best used in a hockey trade to help the rebuild.  Kessel to a "now" contender for a future bona-fide norris type defense man has been my calling card for awhile (i.e. Kessel for Jones type of scenario).

 

[Corn Flake]

Hello peoples. Long time no see.

I confess I joined tank nation a while ago.  It has to happen now. As much as i despise losing, I can't cheer for this group of sad sacks anymore anyway, so just sitting back and watching them mail it in every night feels okay since the end result will be good for the long term.

As for next year I don't even care who plays what role. Outside of McDavid, whoever they draft should not be prematurely brought up only to get killed every night on a rebuilding team.  Blowing out the current core is an absolute must. All of them.

 

[Corn Flake]

It seems that Potvin and I are the only two whom defend Phil. This season is an aberration,  let let him hit the reset button with a new coach and hopefully a decent Centre.
When you say "Rebuild", you do need some players to rebuild around.

His lack of work ethic on and off the ice make him the first guy who should be fired out of a cannon off this team. Last thing you want is young guys seeing him as an example.  He can go get his 1st line centre on another team..a team with an established core that won't accept his lack of effort. 

Bottom line for Phil is if he mails in another off season with the Leafs or any other team it's not going to go well for him next year either.  I think he's reached an age where his lack of conditioning has caught up with him. He can't get away with it anymore. The older he gets the worse it's going to get unless he commits to being in better shape.

 

[Highlander]

How many games do you actually attend? I have been to many in the past 4 years and game in and game out Kessel is racing up and down the ice, certainly the fastest skater on the ice at all the games I was at. (Yes he has deficiencies and yes the past 30 or 40 games it may seem like he is lacking in effort).

We can look and we can blame and we find our scapegoats but again snipers do not grow on trees and he is one of the most talented snipers the Leafs have ever had.
To bad we never could have seen him with Sundin and Roberts.  50-60 goals would have been possible.

Give us the new head coach and a Centre whom is not Bozak and lets give Phil another season. If he is lacking in one year then I would agree to move him.