Well it was bound to happen it seemed and now it has happened. The Bruins have traded young star Phil Kessel to the Toronto Maple Leafs for first round picks in 2010 and 2011 and a second round pick in 2010. I think it was good to get those high draft picks from a team like Toronto that is rebuilding and won't probably make the playoffs this season. But trading a star winger to a team in your own division I do not like. Hopefully the Bruins can shut Kessel down when they play against him. Let me know your thoughts on this trade, was it a good or bad trade?
Update on 09/19/09 at 2:52 PM
Here are comments from Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli and forward Patrice Bergeron about the Kessel trade. First, from Chiarelli:
And from Bergeron:
Update on 09/19/09 at 4:45 PM
Yahoo's Puck Daddy has a good blog post about the Kessel trade and mentioned some stuff that makes you think he may have been a problem in the Bruins locker room and now he is Toronto's problem. I did not know about these incidents so this definitely interested me. In the Puck Daddy blog post, they link to two other articles, the first article on theScore.com with some Blue Jackets staff interviewing Kessel pre-draft, and some really non-team/selfish comments. The other article on CBCSports.ca is also a good read and expands on some of Kessel's weaknesses.
We all know Kessel doesn't like talking with the media. I remember seeing him on some NESN interviews where he looked out of place and didn't really want to be there. If it was hard for him in Boston, well it's going to be ten times harder in Toronto where they go nuts about hockey like fans in Boston go nuts about the Red Sox. Kessel signed a 5-year $27 million contract with Toronto. Good luck to you Kessel.
Update on 09/19/09 at 5:32 PM
Yes another update to this post as I found an interesting article on TSN.ca. Read the quotes below from the article.
Update on 09/19/09 at 2:52 PM
Here are comments from Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli and forward Patrice Bergeron about the Kessel trade. First, from Chiarelli:
"A trade of this nature is obviously difficult. When you trade a good young player who can score goals with speed, who we drafted and helped develop, so obviously it's a difficult thing and I'll fill you in on some of the details. But let me be perfectly clear, this trade is really about two things: one, it's about a player who did not want to play in Boston, and two, it's about the threat or the perceived threat of an offer sheet. And I'll get into detail a little bit those two things, but really that's what this trade is all about."
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And from Bergeron:
"Well, I think for us, we're pretty happy with what we have in the dressing room and we believe in all the guys that's here right now," he said. "It's Phil's decision and we all respect that, but at the same time we're here in training camp and we feel good with all the guys that are here now."
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Update on 09/19/09 at 4:45 PM
Yahoo's Puck Daddy has a good blog post about the Kessel trade and mentioned some stuff that makes you think he may have been a problem in the Bruins locker room and now he is Toronto's problem. I did not know about these incidents so this definitely interested me. In the Puck Daddy blog post, they link to two other articles, the first article on theScore.com with some Blue Jackets staff interviewing Kessel pre-draft, and some really non-team/selfish comments. The other article on CBCSports.ca is also a good read and expands on some of Kessel's weaknesses.
A guy who beat testicular cancer, but wouldn't play through last season's shoulder injury until teammates pointed out they were playing through worse.
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Lucic arrived willing to do anything and everything necessary to succeed. It was no trouble getting him to do extra work on the ice or in the weight room. It was much, much harder to convince Kessel that the extra work is necessary. There is still a feeling that he doesn't understand how important it is. One teammate said, "He is still young (22 in October), so he will figure it out." Others are not so charitable.
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One of the reasons he dropped down to fifth in the 2006 NHL Draft were suggestions that he was coddled and not receptive to criticism. That label remains. Julien's had a tough relationship with Kessel because that's not his style. (The two even fought about the kind of stick Kessel used.)
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We all know Kessel doesn't like talking with the media. I remember seeing him on some NESN interviews where he looked out of place and didn't really want to be there. If it was hard for him in Boston, well it's going to be ten times harder in Toronto where they go nuts about hockey like fans in Boston go nuts about the Red Sox. Kessel signed a 5-year $27 million contract with Toronto. Good luck to you Kessel.
Update on 09/19/09 at 5:32 PM
Yes another update to this post as I found an interesting article on TSN.ca. Read the quotes below from the article.
"This is not about frugality," Boston general manager Peter Chiarelli said on Saturday. "There were some significant offers made."
Chiarelli said Kessel told him in July he no longer wanted to play in Boston, and the Bruins traded the rights to the 21-year-old former first-round pick to the Maple Leafs for Toronto's first-round picks in each of the next two drafts plus the Leafs' second-round pick in 2010.
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It is believed Kessel's problems with the team started when coach Claude Julien benched him for part of the first-round 2008 playoff series against Montreal. Julien was unhappy with Kessel's two-way play, something the coach said improved last season.
"My first year here (2007-08) was really trying to convince him that we were really trying to make him a better player and that he needed to just understand that," Julien said on Saturday. "Obviously, he did because he scored 36 goals the next year (and was a plus-23), but I even told him in a conversation that I didn't get a bonus for making him a bad player, so that he had to understand that everything I did was to try and make him a better player and I think that message was understood."
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"We are all happy with what we have, the group of guys we have in this room," captain Zdeno Chara said. "I can't really make comments on Phil's behalf, what he felt, why he decided not to be part of it. It's absolutely Phil's decision. It's part of the business."
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