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Fallout of the failed Phil Kessel trade to Minnesota?
Pittsburgh is still not bringing him back under any circumstances. They’re determined to start next season with Phil Kessel off their roster.
What happens next if Pittsburgh can’t find a trade partner without Kessel’s permission (a very difficult task with how purposely difficult Kessel has made his list) will be the fascinating part of how long Kessel tries to take this. He knows he’s not wanted back but the sense of the situation is that it wouldn’t stop Kessel from taking things to July or even August if a suitable trade destination doesn’t emerge before then.
And that’s the worst case scenario for the Penguins right now who wanted to get this done before the end of the month, though, I’d argue they’ve made their own bed as based on Kessel’s low trade value which was established even as far back as last summer, his greatest value to Pittsburgh is being in a Penguin uniform on opening night. Word continues to circulate at least from the Penguins end that things got bad behind the scenes last spring but this isn’t some type of Antonio Brown situation.
Subtracting talent for team chemistry and more buy-in players can always be a risky route but this is what the Penguins have set their sights to do this off-season and one way or another, they’re going to do it, sources say.
The Penguins for months had planned to trade Kessel this summer and the belief around the league even right after the February trade deadline was that Jim Rutherford & Co were always going to make Kessel the scapegoat if there was an early exit, and that only enhanced during organization meetings immediately after being swept by the Islanders. A unanimous decision in the organization was made to trade Kessel by the time Pittsburgh’s concluded their first and second phase of organization meetings which were done during the first week of May.
League sources say before Penguins GM Jim Rutherford took about 10-14 days away to decompress all the info that was brought to the table by multiple parties, he informed rival General Manager’s in early May of an internal deadline to complete a Phil Kessel trade before the start of the Stanley Cup Final. Rutherford had thought he accomplished that goal. The Minnesota scenario was put in play about two weeks before it got leaked and it was something GM Paul Fenton wanted to sit on it for a week or two and on To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! but a decision from Kessel was already made by the time the official paperwork got to Kessel and his agency. Newport Sports that reps Kessel is plugged-in like no other agency and they got wind To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! Kessel’s reps had already provided him thorough information on the Wild’s roster, prospect system, coaching tactics of Bruce Boudreau, what players think of playing in Minnesota, [hide] ect.
When Pittsburgh officially made the trade request, it was a pretty quick no from Kessel. Wild GM Paul Fenton who initially had trouble getting a returned call from Kessel, had no luck in swaying Kessel as by Friday morning the trade is said to have been 100% dead. A source says Kessel’s conversation with Fenton was a ‘respectable’ short one.
The Penguins are extremely frustrated. They felt they were sending Kessel to an ideal destination for him personally. Close to his hometown, he’d be a front-line player, get to play for a very good coach with a history of coaching high-end players and Kessel has some friendships with some top Wild players where Pittsburgh thought he would strongly consider waiving.
“We’re not trying to trade him to f****** Siberia [Ottawa],” a high ranking Penguins source said of Kessel declining the trade, referencing the team didn’t ask for his permission to go to somewhere like Ottawa.
What’s at play here is Phil will get moved on his terms and the grind is on between the two sides.
As the Kessel camp keeps telling me, ‘the list is the list’ and ‘it’s May’. There’s going to be no rush from Kessel’s point of view, while the pressure turns on the Penguins.
“His [Phil Kessel] list is a f****** joke,” a Penguins source said of Kessel’s 8-team list.
Kessel has always formulated his trade list (accept) with teams up against the cap who would be unlikely to trade for him. Penguin officials, though, feel Kessel went above and beyond with his updated list that the team requested where two Western Conference teams that had been on Kessel’s list for 5+ years (were teams that the Kessel camp was aware kicked tires on Kessel prior to the 2018 draft) were suddenly removed and replaced by teams the Penguins feel are a joke that would never try to trade for Kessel.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Islanders, and Boston Bruins are the six clear cut teams on Kessel’s list the Penguins internally just laugh at for various reasons.
Tampa which was recently added (during the last request by the team) per a source, has had the Penguins chuckling..….. Rangers coach David Quinn is best friends with Mike Sullivan so draw your own conclusions…… Philadelphia and Pittsburgh coming together on a Kessel trade isn’t happening……Toronto and Boston is just LOL…… Lou Lamoriello whose first case of business in Toronto was trading Kessel, is never going to touch him……
It’s no secret around the league that the Kessel camp has been trying to orchestrate a trade to the Arizona Coyotes for their client, yet, there’s whispers Kessel took Arizona off his list the most recent time Pittsburgh asked for an updated list just to make a power move and make his acceptable trade list more difficult.
On the heels of Kessel blocking the Minnesota trade, Rutherford in the immediate aftermath has gone on with his business of trying to get more teams to the table, (two teams not on Kessel’s list and one that is), while Arizona is hovering around but more in the mold of sitting back kind of like the Oakland Raiders did with Antonio Brown. Just waiting things out as they’ve yet to put their cards on the table. [/hide]
Just to let you Guys know
Even tho penguins season ended
Npl still sucks
So does the DemocRATS
Riveting
Then just keep him and his 70+ points. Letang should be the one gone anyway.
Lamoriello wasn’t with the Leafs when they traded Kessel
Brendan Shanahan negotiated the Kessel acquisition with Jimmy Rutherford in June of 2015, and it was the first major trade he had ever completed. Lou Lamoriello had not yet been hired. Shanahan didn’t do the deal alone. He gathered his advisers, his scouts, both NHL and otherwise
Babcock didn’t want chubby in his team
You man the most overrated coach in recent history?
Oh yeah forgot you like underrated coaches that learned their coaching skills based on watching mighty ducks movies DB
So far you have professed undying love for guys like Babcock whose sole claim to greatness is coaching the big red machine to a single cup and neutering the Canadian offence to Olympic Gold… Next on your list, one of the most belligerent coaches in the league since expansion who has never won a motherfucken thing. You and other morons shit on Sullivan for being less Therrien than Therrien but too much Therrien for the Pens players you want to snap towels with. You DROOL over Babcock for incredibly asinine roster decisions like significantly scaling back his top line players,… Read more »
So according to your logic then Trotz must be overrated and tortorella too. Both won 1 cups like babcock yet often choked with good teams.
Neither of those coaches are discussed among the greatest of all time and neither of them have you keeping their balls moist for them the way you do. I am not claiming Babcock is garbage but he is not “THE BEST COACH OF THIS GENERATION” because he hasn’t proved himself to be any better than Trotz, or Torts, or Laviolette etc. Torts is very much like Therrien but managed to keep it together long enough to have the Lightning come through for him… If you recall he took a huge shitt on Khabibulin either during or not long after that… Read more »
Yet you had DB best coach to play for. Lol
Ya… that’s clearly not what I said you stupid fuckk The point you continue to miss, EVERYTIME, this comes up is simple. You continue to fellate Therrien simply because he is from Quebec… that’s it. Bylsma won… and despite the fact I agree with his deficiencies he still got the job done. If he was Canadian, especially from PQ, you wouldn’t be so obsessive and stupid about the guy PERIOD. I don’t see much a different between the two. Therrien is overrated as fuck… I missed him on my list. He is one of the more overrated coaches the past… Read more »
Yeah and talent shows up he wins. He cent coach a real team as we saw minute he talent was fed up he was canned as we saw with penguins and sabres
Therrien coached talent… he lost then his teams quit on him
Therrien coached a core team that was young and not mature yet. DB ruined star players main prime years after winning with MT. Luckily penguins won 2 in a row. Or else this Crosby era was going to look very bad 1 cup since 2005
Bahahahahahaha, literally one year later they won 4 instead of 2 in the same series… fuckkk all the way off
If you need more, IMO the top coaches of the last 20 years, in no order (Bowman is the obvious no brainer and the top dog all time) Quinnville, Laviolette, Trotz, Pat Burns, Babock despite me not agreeing he is a stand out best of the generation by any means Guys who have accolades (some who’ve won) but I find people somewhat overstate them: Torts, Vigneault, Julien, Boudreau, Carlyle, Darryl Sutter (he is so close to being a top coach yet the teams on average under-perform for him), Hartley, Hitch (was great in the 90s game, struggled to adapt), Crawford,… Read more »
Hitch was good with a all star team like Dallas stars but some how like Wilson he is the type coach that does good with vet teams only.
Hitch was a pre-cap era coach. If the rules didnt change he probably would have continued on a path to becoming an all time great. His approach doesnt work the way it used to which is why he is a shadow of the guy he was with Dallas. It wasn’t as simple as Dallas being an allstar team, if we are going to write of coaching accomplishments because they coached talent we shit on every great coach there has been because they have all won with tremendous teams
The year stars won he had 9 or 12 former captains in his team
OK… Kelly Buchberger was a C once… soooooo
This is what happens when teams hand out NTC’s like candy. He has every right to exercise his clause. They are using him as the scape goat (he was bad this post season but so was the entire team, Crosby, Malkin and Letang included) so in turn he will throw them under the bus as well. It is sad it has come to this. He was/is loved by the fans and the guys in the locker room. Part of this team mess is on GMJR as well. Bad trades and he made the team older and slower. PK got his… Read more »