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Washington's Braden Holtby makes a save on Phil Kessel in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
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20 Penguins Thoughts: So, was Phil Kessel hurt or not?

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

20 Penguins Thoughts: So, was Phil Kessel hurt or not?

On the surface, they sounded like very different statements.

Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford, speaking at his season-ending press conference on May 9, said Phil Kessel “dealt with injuries all year” and “some of the things he dealt with caught up with him.”

Meanwhile, coach Mike Sullivan took a firehose to any potential Kessel injury situation: “He was dealing with bumps and bruises just like some of our other guys, but it was nothing significant, I can tell you that.”

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Kessel, of course, produced just one goal, 18 shots and 34 five-on-five attempts in 12 games. Watching him, he looked little like the guy who produced 34 goals and 92 points — a league-leading 42 on the power play — during the regular season. However, as we all saw, Playoff Phil looked little like the regular-season version.

A feisty Phil Kessel exchanges words with Senators goalie Craig Anderson in a Feb. 13 game at PPG Paints Arena this past season.
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Monday morning was the first time I talked to Rutherford since breakup day, and I asked if he could offer some clarity on what appeared to be two competing statements.

“He played with injuries at different times during the year that he played through,” Rutherford told me. “Mike’s comment, if I understand it right, was there wasn’t any injury that prevented him from playing in the playoffs.”

OK then. Let’s work through that a little bit.

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2. I find the second part of Rutherford’s comments from Monday most interesting. He’s basically relying on Sullivan’s assessment that it was nothing significant that hindered Kessel. Rutherford did not reiterate what he said previously — that injuries caught up to Kessel.

Secondly, “there wasn’t any injury that prevented him from playing in the playoffs” is absolutely true; he played every game.

But I think what we’re seeing here is that, between coach and general manager, neither is willing to ascribe Kessel’s poor postseason to injuries. He was well enough to play, thus they expected him to produce. That was my biggest takeaway here: that we should pump the brakes on the whole Kessel-was-hurt narrative. He should’ve produced more than he did. End of story.

3. I also think there’s some validity to what both Sullivan and Rutherford said on breakup day. They were both right, in their own way.

Penguins goaltender Matt Murray.
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There wasn’t one singular injury with Kessel. It was more, as Rutherford said, an accumulation of stuff over time, the result of playing every game since 2009-10 to continue an Ironman streak that stands at 790 for regular season and playoffs.

If I had to wager a bet, I’d say Rutherford was peeved that Kessel kept playing, was allowed to keep playing and didn’t take time off to let his injuries heal. (Regular seasons have never really been a strong suit or a focal point for the Penguins, nor would Kessel have caught flack if he said he needed a couple weeks off in February to get healthy.)

I also think Sullivan — who allowed Kessel to keep his streak going — was peeved that Kessel didn’t do a better job of playing through whatever was bothering him.

4. Here’s why I think that:

Sullivan’s part is obvious. He said flat-out he didn’t think injuries were the reason Kessel struggled.

I asked Rutherford on Monday whether he thought too much emphasis has been placed on Kessel’s Ironman streak.

“That’s hard to say … hard to say,” Rutherford said, repeating himself. “He’s a guy that’s always been used to playing and doesn’t want to take games off. That’s hard to say.”

Notice the word “no” or any iteration of it does not appear.

5. The Penguins like Kessel. His teammates really like him. Please don’t take this as there’s some sort of — gulp — rift going here. There’s not.

And I do think Kessel talking at breakup day could’ve clarified things, but obviously that didn’t happen.

(By the way, I could not care less from a media perspective, but I’m surprised more fans — who paid money good money to see a player who clearly wasn’t right — weren’t more ardent in wanting an explanation. Instead, I heard a lot of, “Ah, that’s Phil.” Hey, whatever.)

6. Here’s where I think the Penguins are with Kessel:

He’s coming off one of the best offensive seasons of his career, one that was also perhaps his best all-around campaign (admittedly a low bar to clear). He’s a fan favorite, and the Penguins know it.

But this isn’t the first time something Kessel has done – or hasn’t done – has irritated Sullivan.

They’re not actively going to shop him this summer, but they’d absolutely listen to offers. If Rutherford got one he liked, I don’t think he would hesitate to pull the trigger on a deal.

There’s four years left on a hefty contract that will carry Kessel into his mid-30s. Plus, the Penguins have a similar player coming up in Daniel Sprong.

Again, only my two cents, but that’s what I think — that it’s absolutely something worth monitoring as we enter the NHL Draft and free agency.

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7. There are very few untouchables for Rutherford.

Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Patric Hornqvist, Jake Guentzel, Brian Dumoulin, Matt Murray … that’s probably it, honestly.

“I’m not going to get into untouchables because that tells you who I would trade,” Rutherford said when I broached the subject Monday. “There are lots of players I’m not actively trying to move. It’s like anything. If somebody calls and likes a certain player, and the deal makes sense, and we feel we’re improving our team, I’ll do it. There’s obviously guys I wouldn’t trade and I’m sure the organization would never trade.”

Again, I don’t think they’re actively looking to trade Kessel. His value is pretty much at his highest point, and the Penguins’ braintrust is fully aware of what he means to his teammates and the fanbase. But they’d be foolish not to listen.

8. Moving on … the Penguins’ average age skewed much younger this season, with the losses of Chris Kunitz, Matt Cullen, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ron Hainsey, Nick Bonino and Trevor Daley.

Much of that was tough to avoid, either because of the expansion draft (Fleury), personal preference (Cullen) or better offers elsewhere (Hainsey, Bonino and Daley). I do think the Penguins were hesitant to bring Kunitz back because they thought they’d be getting Cullen and didn’t want to have two old players occupying bottom-six spots.

The entire situation contributed to a lack of veteran leadership, especially when you consider that one of the older players Rutherford brought in over the summer, Matt Hunwick, turned out to be nothing more than a healthy scratch in the playoffs.

I asked Rutherford whether, in hindsight, he saw this as a flaw in this year’s team.

“It was kind of a transition because we lost a lot of those key, glue guys,” Rutherford said. “It wasn’t like we lost one or two. They were all key leaders in their own ways. When you transition to younger players, you’re looking for some guys to step up and take their place. That’s not something you can just do overnight. You have to learn how to do that.”

9. Not to say the contributions from those guys weren’t missed. Kunitz remains an effective fourth-line player, and I’ll be interested to see what happens if he, for whatever reason, doesn’t return to Tampa next season.

I think Cullen retires.

Here’s guessing Vegas wants to keep Fleury around. (I kid.)

The other three make too much, although given Rutherford’s comments yesterday to me about a third-pairing defenseman who plays the right side … one or two years of Daley sure wouldn’t be the worst thing.

“We did miss that part in our room,” Rutherford said. “There’s no question. With that being said, I think what we dealt with – we ended up with 100 points and still competed pretty hard in the playoffs – those same guys may very well have dealt with the same things as the other guys did. We played a lot of hockey and ran out of gas.”

Last point on this: Those six got to where they are because of years like this one. This current group of players, still growing as leaders, gained a lot of valuable experience from this past season.

10. If Cullen does call it quits, I don’t think he would be the worst hire for a post-playing job in the Penguins hockey operations department.

He’s smart, well-liked, has tremendous patience with younger players and is universally respected.

However, I don’t see it happening here, if hockey operations for a professional hockey team is the route Cullen chooses to go. As Rutherford explained, there simply aren’t any openings right now.

“Right now, in our hockey ops, we pretty much have everything filled up,” Rutherford said. “We really don’t have any openings there. If we were doing that, we would be opening up a spot that’s not available at this point.”

11. When the Penguins reconvene for training camp in late September, there could be an interesting battle for the backup goaltender spot.

Sort of in the same vein, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Penguins listened on Tristan Jarry — he’s a future No. 1, has nothing left to gain from the AHL and would give Rutherford an ace up his sleeve in trade talks — but Rutherford insisted there’ll be an open competition between Jarry and Casey DeSmith, who finished the season as Matt Murray’s backup.

“We’ll be in a stronger position going into camp this year than we were a year ago going into camp because the comfort level of DeSmith and Jarry to play at this level is much better now,” Rutherford said. “We feel we’re going to be stronger at the start of the season. The question is which one of those two guys will grab that No. 2 spot.”

12. In Rutherford’s season-ending press conference, he made news by saying that he expects top prospect Daniel Sprong to be with the NHL club next season.

It was a fairly bold statement considering Sprong was not given a sniff in the postseason, on a club that badly lacked secondary scoring.

You know how patient the Penguins have been with Sprong — almost too patient. Turns out, in Rutherford’s mind, it’s basically time to take the training wheels off once and for all and see what they have.

“I think because of the fact that we’ve been patient with his development — at times being tempted to bring him up with the big team but recognizing there were still some things that he had to learn — we have to give him that opportunity, at this point, to take that next step,” Rutherford said. “We need to see if he can or he can’t do it.

“He’s certainly the most skilled and most ready guy that we have not with our team. I feel like it’s time, certainly in the early-going of next season, coming out of camp, to find out if he’s ready to play.”

13. If you’re expecting Rutherford to ask for a do-over on the Ian Cole trade, you’re going to be waiting awhile.

Not just because the Penguins are happy with Derick Brassard — they are — but Rutherford seemed to downplay Cole’s impact over the past season-plus.

“It was fine,” Rutherford said. “Ian went through a period of time there for a year and a half where he wasn’t totally comfortable with how much he was playing, where he was playing. He was in and out of the lineup. You have to remember, he was a healthy scratch for a long period of time. I don’t have any second thoughts on that at all.”

14. I don’t totally understand downplaying Cole’s contributions. He was a huge part of their two Stanley Cup runs in 2016 and 2017, a heart-and-soul defenseman who did pretty much everything you could ask for someone making $2.1, but there was friction between Cole and Sullivan.

Not necessarily over role, more over Cole’s chumminess with the media and times where he felt like he was unfairly singled out.

Most of that, of course, is noise. Rutherford had to trade Cole to get Brassard, and that’s a move that nobody regrets. They went for it. There’s was also a 0.0 chance Cole was going to resign with the Penguins on July 1, so they’d be in the same boat anyway — shopping for a third-pair defenseman.

15. Several people in power have been critical of NHL officiating this postseason, most notably Bruins president Cam Neely.

“I think they really need to take a hard look at what’s happening with the refereeing,” Neely said in this Boston Globe story.

I asked Rutherford whether he’d care to comment on the state of NHL officiating, and he had no desire to take the same tack.

“Our sport is the toughest game to officiate because of the speed of it,” Rutherford said. “It’s always easy to criticize when you can go and look at replays and slow everything down, break everything down. Sure, I could point out a couple times where an official maybe should have called one or shouldn’t have called one. The officiating did not cost us being eliminated from the playoffs.”

16. The Fleury vs. Murray debate baffles me.

It seems impossible to appreciate one without having to say something mean about the other.

Why?

Fact: Fleury is playing really, really well right now and is the Conn Smythe Trophy frontrunner should Vegas win the Stanley Cup.

Fact II: Murray has won two Cups, makes $3.75 million and will turn 24 on Friday.

Fact III: The Penguins couldn’t get keep both, nor would it have made any sense whatsoever to throw nearly $10 million at goaltending.

Fact IV: Next season, Fleury will turn 34.

Fact V: Neither guy really wants to participate in a timeshare.

Fact VI: Tampa did the same thing, trading Ben Bishop because they had 23-year-old Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Fact VII: The Penguins were afforded the unique blessing of having two incredibly talented players at a position where you really only get to keep one.

17. Speaking of Fleury … had a terrific chat with him in Vegas, away from the crowd.

When we spoke in December, I could sense Fleury was happy, but I think there was still a wait-and-see kind of feel with the Golden Knights.

That has changed.

Fleury absolutely loves what they have going on, his teammates, the culture, how players are treated, etc. All of those things existed in Pittsburgh, too, but knowing he was going to have to move on, I’m not sure Fleury could be happier with how things turned out — for obvious reasons.

18. I do think it’s a tremendous situation for Fleury hockey-wise. It’s unpopular because it seems like we’re downplaying what Fleury or the Golden Knights have accomplished, but it’s a very goaltender-friendly system.

Play with speed. Get the puck out quick. Try to put the other team on its heels. When it’s working, goaltenders aren’t facing a ton of Grade A chances, maybe 5-6 a game.

Credit to Fleury, he’s made the stops, but there’s probably a reason four goaltenders — including two who spent time in the ECHL — have stepped in and done the job.

19. Two things I don’t understand about outside perception when it comes to Vegas and T-Mobile Arena.

One is the idea that this is somehow bad for hockey.

How?

Attention from people outside of our hockey bubble, that’s bad? Or maybe because a team thrown together can beat teams who’ve been together for years?

If anything, to me, the success of Vegas speaks to how it can be to analyze talent and to know what you have. I also think there’s something at play here that you can only understand if you’ve played competitive sports.

These guys like playing with one another. It’s a team with a really good culture, an expectation to win. That counts for a lot.

20. The second is the atmosphere.

Spare me the traditionalist talk.

We’re going to put a team in LAS VEGAS and then complain when it handles itself like LAS VEGAS? For crying out loud.

They’re not throwing stuff on the ice. They’re not booing the Stanley Cup or any other trophy presentation. In fact, a lot of these folks started out as fans of other teams before moving to Vegas, and they have a decent understanding of hockey.

It’s also Vegas. The in-game presentation is not only fun and entertaining, but it’s a part of the city’s culture. I don’t see why they should have to apologize for that.

Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.

First Published: May 22, 2018, 12:00 p.m.

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