Confirmed with Link: Kessel and a 4th to Arizona for Galchenyuk and PO Joseph

[Dipsy Doodle]

Kessel today is nothing even close to Kessel in Toronto, just looking at points is a very inaccurate measure. Kessel is a 65 point winger who farmed powerplay points for the Penguins in the last 2 years. If Kessel today was still Kessel of 2013, he would have put up 110 points with the Penguins. He was an absolute monster at ES while in Toronto, he's not that anymore. He's going to see the same decline in production that Neal had, his best is going to fall by about 20 points.

Kessel only had 2 seasons in his entire career when he produced more ES points than he did in each of his last 2 seasons here, so offering the very specific 2013 date as solely representative of his Toronto tenure is more than a little questionable. This idea that he's had some precipitous decline in ES production doesn't hold up.

If Kessel's ES production at the beginning of his Pittsburgh tenure was good enough for us to ride him to back-to-back Cups, it doesn't make sense as a determining factor now, and adding Galchenyuk doesn't do anything to remedy it. It's not hard to predict that Galchenyuk won't be as productive at ES as Kessel's been for either of the last 2 seasons, and will have similar defensive struggles if he plays with JJ as often as Phil did.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Kessel only had 2 seasons in his entire career when he produced more ES points than he did in each of his last 2 seasons here, so offering the very specific 2013 date as solely representative of his Toronto tenure is more than a little questionable. This idea that he's had some precipitous decline in ES production doesn't hold up.

If Kessel's ES production at the beginning of his Pittsburgh tenure was good enough for us to ride him to back-to-back Cups, it doesn't make sense as a determining factor now, and adding Galchenyuk doesn't do anything to remedy it. It's not hard to predict that Galchenyuk won't be as productive at ES as Kessel's been for either of the last 2 seasons, and will have similar defensive struggles if he plays with JJ as often as Phil did.

You're conveniently not mentioning what "more" means here and you're ignoring a ton of context, but that's about par the course.

Let's just ignore that Kessel had a 3 year run from 2011-2014 of leading the NHL in ES points. That's not a typo, his 150 ES points from 2011-2014 was 1st in the NHL over that window. In the last 3 years, Kessel is 31st in the NHL in ES points, basically equal to Jakub Voracek (same points in 4 more games). He is exactly 100 points away from the leading ES point total over those 3 years.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

You're conveniently not mentioning what "more" means here and you're ignoring a ton of context, but that's about par the course.

Nothing's being ignored. You're characterizing Kessel as a "PP point farmer" whose ES production recently fell off of a cliff, when in fact his last 2 seasons have been his best ever outside of 2 career years of his 5 seasons in Toronto.

That means he was producing more at ES the last 2 seasons than he did for the majority of his time as a Leaf - including his last season as a Leaf - and during our Cup run years.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Nothing's being ignored. You're characterizing Kessel's production as having fallen off of a cliff at ES, when in fact his last 2 seasons have been his best ever outside of 2 career years of his 5 seasons in Toronto.

That means he was producing more at ES than he did for the majority of his time as a Leaf - including his last season as a Leaf - and during our Cup run years.

And again, you're not saying what "more" actually means here and you're ignoring a ton of context. Want me to list all of the things you're ignoring? Here you go:

1. Scoring is higher now than it was while Kessel was in Toronto.
2. Kessel has dramatically more offensive help in Pittsburgh than he had in Toronto.
3. Relating to the previous point, Kessel took the best of the other team's defense while in Toronto and gets easier matchups in Pittsburgh.
4. Kessel's 17-18 ES points/game ranked 5th and his 18-19 ES points/game ranked 6th in his career. His 18-19 is as close to his worst season as his best season in terms of ES points/game.
5. Kessel led the league in ES points from 2011 to 2014. He's 31st from 2016 to 2019, and 100 points off of the league leader in ES points.

But yes, you ignoring things like games played, league average scoring, how Kessel does relative to the rest of the league and the quality of teams Kessel played for is means "nothing's being ignored". Kessel has obviously declined at ES from his best, this shouldn't even be a debate.

 

[Turin]

You’re not that good if you’re just barely breaking even with Malkin. Doesn’t matter if you have 100 ES points, if you’re so bad defensively that you give most of that up it doesn’t matter. Kessel is clearly not better now than he was in his prime, which tells you all you need to about his counting stats.

 

[Empoleon8771]

ES scoring is up about 13.5% today from Kessel's peak from 2011-2014. Kessel averaged 66 ES points per 82 games if you adjust his ES totals based only on that. Kessel had 46 last year and 50 the year before. This doesn't take into account that his best offensive linemates were JVR, Kadri and Bozak.

Saying Kessel hasn't had a decline in ES production is about as correct as saying Crosby hasn't had a decline in ES production, because his 18-19 was the 2nd most ES points he has ever had in a season.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

And again, you're not saying what "more" actually means here and you're ignoring a ton of context. Want me to list all of the things you're ignoring? Here you go:

1. Scoring is higher now than it was while Kessel was in Toronto.
2. Kessel has dramatically more offensive help in Pittsburgh than he had in Toronto.
3. Relating to the previous point, Kessel took the best of the other team's defense while in Toronto and gets easier matchups in Pittsburgh.
4. Kessel's 17-18 ES points/game ranked 5th and his 18-19 ES points/game ranked 6th in his career. His 18-19 is as close to his worst season as his best season in terms of ES points/game.
5. Kessel led the league in ES points from 2011 to 2014. He's 31st from 2016 to 2019, and 100 points off of the league leader in ES points.

But yes, you ignoring things like games played, league average scoring, how Kessel does relative to the rest of the league and the quality of teams Kessel played for is means "nothing's being ignored". Kessel has obviously declined at ES from his best, this shouldn't even be a debate.

From his 2 career-best full seasons?* Yes, but that's never been the debate nor has it ever been relevant to Kessel's contributions to the Penguins, which is the entire point.

The most relevant info here is that Kessel has been more productive at ES - in terms of raw numbers and league-wide ranking - the last 2 seasons than during the Cup years. Everyone was more than happy with his ES production when we were winning, and he improved since then.

*If anyone wants to go down the road of extrapolating partial-season production with P/G here, they'd do well to remember Kessel's first half of '18-'19.

 

[Empoleon8771]

From his 2 career-best full seasons? Yes, but that's never been the debate nor has it ever been relevant to Kessel's contributions to the Penguins, which is the entire point.

The most relevant info here is that Kessel has been more productive at ES - in terms of raw numbers and league-wide ranking - the last 2 seasons than during the Cup years.

You bolded me saying "He was an absolute monster at ES while in Toronto, he's not that anymore" and responded with "This idea that he's had some precipitous decline in ES production doesn't hold up". And now you're saying that has never been the debate?

My initial post was saying that Kessel isn't close to what he once was and that he'd likely get about a 20 point drop by going elsewhere. I don't particularly care how Kessel's ES production looked in 16 or 17 vs 18 or 19, because I wasn't talking about that. I also don't know how you think that's a rebuttal to me saying that Kessel today is nothing compared to Kessel in Toronto.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

You bolded me saying "He was an absolute monster at ES while in Toronto, he's not that anymore" and responded with "This idea that he's had some precipitous decline in ES production doesn't hold up". And now you're saying that has never been the debate?

His best seasons in Toronto weren't his only seasons in Toronto.

My initial post was saying that Kessel isn't close to what he once was and that he'd likely get about a 20 point drop by going elsewhere. I don't particularly care how Kessel's ES production looked in 16 or 17 vs 18 or 19, because I wasn't talking about that. I also don't know how you think that's a rebuttal to me saying that Kessel today is nothing compared to Kessel in Toronto.

If his ES production was more than fine for the Cup years, it doesn't make sense to say that better numbers the last 2 years aren't sufficient. Characterizing him as a PP point farmer now when he's gotten better at ES since we were winning isn't arguing in earnest.

 

[Empoleon8771]

His best seasons in Toronto weren't his only seasons in Toronto.

Uh...okay? Kessel's just a worse ES player now than he was in Toronto when you actually take into account context, you're wasting keystrokes arguing against facts.

If his ES production was more than fine for the Cup years, it doesn't make sense to say that better numbers the last 2 years aren't sufficient. Characterizing him as a PP point farmer now when he's gotten better at ES since we were winning isn't arguing in earnest.

Again, I don't care about that because that's not what I'm talking about and I've never talked about it. I think it's a pretty crappy argument in the first place, but that's completely irrelevant from what I'm actually talking about.

Someone else said that Kessel was a PPG player in 3 of his last 4 seasons in Toronto, to argue against the idea that he'll get a dramatic decline in production by leaving Pittsburgh. I said what I did because Kessel was an insanely better ES player in those years in Toronto than he is now, so to compare just the raw points is a bad argument. How Kessel produces today (a lot of powerplay points) isn't the same for how Kessel produced in 2013 (not many powerplay points but leading the league in ES points), so to compare just the stat lines is extremely flawed.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Gals is worse defensively than Kess.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Uh...okay? Kessel's just a worse ES player now than he was in Toronto when you actually take into account context, you're wasting keystrokes arguing against facts.



Again, I don't care about that because that's not what I'm talking about and I've never talked about it. I think it's a pretty crappy argument in the first place, but that's completely irrelevant from what I'm actually talking about.

Someone else said that Kessel was a PPG player in 3 of his last 4 seasons in Toronto, to argue against the idea that he'll get a dramatic decline in production by leaving Pittsburgh. I said what I did because Kessel was an insanely better ES player in those years in Toronto than he is now, so to compare just the raw points is a bad argument. How Kessel produces today (a lot of powerplay points) isn't the same for how Kessel produced in 2013 (not many powerplay points but leading the league in ES points), so to compare just the stat lines is extremely flawed.

I agree that Kessel's not going to be a P/G player in Arizona. I was under the impression your Kessel post was in some way related the the ongoing discussion the last couple pages regarding Kessel and Galchenyuk.

 

[Pens1566]

Gals is worse defensively than Kess.

He's worse at everything than Kessel. Except one timers.

 

[Gurglesons]

Gals is worse defensively than Kess.

That isn’t true at all.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

That isn’t true at all.

 

[Gurglesons]

He’s not a stud defensively or anything. But he isn’t a giveaway machine like Kessel.

The big difference is Galchenyuk will compete every night. He might look like shit, but he’ll actually try.

 

[K Fleur]

Galchenyuk is a young player with "potential" that was a high draft pick and has been stuck on some bad teams. He's HF's wet dream.

He's got about 6 months until he's no longer "young" for HF though.

 

[Gurglesons]

Galchenyuk is a young player with "potential" that was a high draft pick and has been stuck on some bad teams. He's HF's wet dream.

He's got about 6 months until he's no longer "young" for HF though.

He’s not Kessel, but even in his current form he’s a Perron like top six winger. Could’ve gotten a lot worse return. Like most of us were asking for Fischer to be the centerpiece.

 

[K Fleur]

He’s not Kessel, but even in his current form he’s a Perron like top six winger. Could’ve gotten a lot worse return. Like most of us were asking for Fischer to be the centerpiece.

With how he performed here I don't think I could get more excited!

 

[Gurglesons]

With how he performed here I don't think I could get more excited!

I still think we would have won a cup without swapping Perron and Hagelin. There is a reason Perron was on a great Anaheim team, and then made two SCFs.

 

[K Fleur]

I still think we would have won a cup without swapping Perron and Hagelin. There is a reason Perron was on a great Anaheim team, and then made two SCFs.

Don’t worry I think things that are incorrect all the time too man.

 

[Gurglesons]

Don’t worry I think things that are incorrect all the time too man.

Perron was fine here until his second year when the whole team sucked. When Perron is your best winger it’ll suck. If we would have had Sheary, Perron, Rust, and Kessel. We would have been fine.

 

[Empoleon8771]

On their defense, Galchenyuk is probably better defensively because his defensive highs are better than Kessel's defensive highs. But comparing how good they are defensively matters about as much as comparing the puck handling of 2 goalies. It's kinda a meaningless argument to compare the defensive abilities of 2 offensive wingers.

 

[Tacitus Kilgore]

I'm under the impression that Galchenyuk may be a more "coachable" player than Kessel, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him better his offensive AND defensive game here

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I'm under the impression that Galchenyuk may be a more "coachable" player than Kessel, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him better his offensive AND defensive game here

I dunno. Galchenyuk clearly has less dour power but he's been moved up and down the line-up and from center to wing by his last 3 coaches because he couldn't handle the defensive duties.