After Turmoil in Toronto, Phil Kessel Is Getting the Last Laugh with Penguins

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Phil Kessel came to meet the media Friday afternoon in black slacks and a white golf shirt, only it was hockey that he had just played, not golf. There has been no golf yet this summer for the 28-year-old native of Madison, Wisconsin, which helps explain another thing not often seen on his face this time of year: smiles.

Kessel, whose career until recently had been characterized as strong individually but mostly devoid of team success, has been flashing a wide-jowled, toothy grin a lot lately. Monday's Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final was his 22nd playoff game of this postseason for the Pittsburgh Penguins, which equaled the number of postseason games he had combined through the first nine seasons of his career with Boston and Toronto.

This whole "winning" thing is a welcome change for Kessel, and he's making sure he takes some time to enjoy it.

"It's a big difference, isn't it?" Kessel said when asked what it's like to play into June for the first time in his 10-year career. "Most of the time I've had really long summers, but this will be a short one. I'm OK with it. It's a lot of fun."

"Fun" isn't the word to describe the last few years of Kessel's stay with the Maple Leafs. Take this locker room incident last year, for example, when, after the firing of head coach Randy Carlyle, a reporter said there had been "suggestions from within the organization that you're a difficult guy to coach. Is there anything to that?" Kessel called the reporter an "idiot":

After he was traded to the Penguins in July 2015, Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun wrote this about Kessel: "The Leafs held their breath, plugged their noses and ostensibly gave Kessel to the Pittsburgh Penguins because they couldn’t stand having him around anymore."

Simmons added:

"

The Leafs were sick and tired of Kessel. Sick of his act. Tired of his lack of responsibility. Unwilling to begin any reset or rebuild with their highest-paid, most talented, least-dedicated player. He didn’t eat right, train right, play right. This had to happen for Brendan Shanahan to begin his rebuilding of the Leafs. Separation between the Leafs and Kessel became necessary when it grew more and more apparent with time that everything Shanahan values was upended by Kessel’s singular, laissez-faire, flippant, mostly uncoachable ways.

"

The Maple Leafs finished with the fewest points in the NHL this season, and Kessel is playing hockey in June for a team that is just two wins away from a Stanley Cup. Is there some schadenfreude for Kessel these days over that fact? If so, he's not saying. But it seems more factual to say any thoughts of Toronto are long gone for Kessel. He's having just too much fun being a Pittsburgh Penguin.

"We believe in each other," Kessel said. "We've got a great group here, we all get along great. We have a lot of fun, and we all play for each other."

Claus Andersen/Getty Images

In Toronto, Kessel was the highest-paid player after signing an eight-year, $64 million contract in 2014. In the first year of the deal, though, his scoring fell from 37 to 25 goals, and he was a minus-34. Only one season into the contract, Toronto dealt Kessel to the Penguins in a multiplayer trade that involved mostly prospects and draft picks. 

For a while, the notion that Kessel might get the last laugh on the Maple Leafs, at least this season, seemed remote at best. He had two goals and one assist in his first seven games with the Penguins, and on Dec. 12, with the team having a mediocre 15-10-3 record, Pittsburgh fired head coach Mike Johnston in favor of Mike Sullivan. 

Was this another example of Kessel being a coach-killer?

Don Wright-USA TODAY Sports

It certainly hasn't been the case with Sullivan, whose arrival turned everything around—Kessel's play included. Sullivan moved Kessel onto a line with Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin, and the trio has been Pittsburgh's best line on many nights, including Game 2 in which they combined for a goal in the Penguins' 2-1 overtime win over San Jose.

Asked by Bleacher Report on Friday what his first few conversations with Kessel were like and what he wanted to get out of him, Sullivan answered in detail:

"Well, we've tried to challenge Phil, like we do all of our players, to become a more complete player. At least based on my experience in coaching in this league, when you're coaching the top players, the offensive players that have great offensive instincts, usually the conversations revolve around playing away from the puck and the decisions they make with the puck. So Phil is no different. We've had a number of conversations on trying to help him improve in areas of his game.

"To his credit, he's been very receptive. I think he's really worked at it. I think we're all seeing the rewards of his work right now. I think he's playing the right way. He's been much better on the boards. I think his determination to play away from the puck and defend in our end zone is much improved. That's a credit to him. He's been really receptive to the message that the coaching staff has been trying to preach to him this year. He's made big improvements."

Asked what he knows now about Kessel that he didn't before becoming his teammate, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said, "I didn't realize what a good passer he was. That was the first thing I noticed as soon as he got here, how well he passes the puck. He's got an incredible shot, and I think you were always aware of that, but he's a really good passer, really smart, and he can make those little plays."

Bruce Bennett/Associated Press

Kessel had the primary assists on Pittsburgh's first two goals in its 3-1 victory over the Sharks in Game 4, putting the Penguins just one win away from the Cup. His best was a cross-ice saucer pass to Evgeni Malkin for a power-play goal in the second period.

"Sometimes his passing ability flies under the radar. He makes a great play on the power-play goal that Geno gets. It's a terrific pass. He passes the puck as well as he can score," Sullivan said.

Kessel might have put a little too much pressure on himself at the start of the season in wanting to impress his new teammates and justify the trade. But he said he never felt any pressure from anyone in the organization, which gradually helped him relax and be his more natural self—a guy who wants to have some, you know, fun out there. With players such as Crosby and Malkin around, Kessel doesn't have to be the focal point every night with the media like he was in Toronto. 

Naturally shy to begin with, long talks with the press never were and probably never will be his thing. He's more than happy to let others get all the media attention.

"Right from the start, guys made me feel comfortable," Kessel said. "We have a great group of guys in here. We all have fun with each other, always joking around and stuff. Right now, it's just fun to come to the rink every day."

The smile on his bearded face made that quite apparent.

Adrian Dater covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him @Adater.