Average age isn’t very meaningful. If your 4 best players are all 32 or older, it doesn’t really matter to me if your 4th line and #7 D are 25 or younger. One doesn’t offset the other.
Our core is old. They’re going to hit the wall at almost the exact same time. We should try to mitigate that.
I'm not nearly as eager to see Kessel out the door as many but it's absolutely true that the productive half of this roster has to get younger. Soon. If Kessel helps do that...
You think Kessel is on the upswing? Seriously? Because of points, right?
So um...that league scoring is up 10% since his Toronto years, he sits on the Penguins powerplay, and watching defense/forechecking means nothing. Oh I forgot, we ignore his defense because as a player-who-scores-points he doesn't have to bothered with such trivial matters.
I have no time for people who ignore he has been a 5 on 5 guy for almost his entire career. The rest we knew coming in, thanks for reminding me he doesn't defense.
He's essentially a lock to be re-signed by Holland. I have a reliable source telling me this.
I was treating it as read that Kessel is the better power play player tbh. If I wasn't I'd have said Zucker is better, not close.
But, for what its worth, PP production is hugely system dependent and I refuse to believe that in a unit as talented as ours that there'd be much drop off if replaced with another good right hand shot.
Then I think the PP is weighted far too lightly. There isn't a minor difference between Kessel and Zucker on the PP, it's night and day.
Kessel's been the most productive player on our PP. You can't just replace your best PP player and expect no significant dropoff if you throw Bjugstad or someone of that calibre in his place. That really undervalues what Kessel does out there.
I just really need to ignore the Kessel stuff, it isn't happening so why waste the keystrokes.
They can have their fantasy.
You're probably right. But if they could, I'd do it. *If* you could get someone to take Johnson along with Kessel, with no salary retained, and we get back futures.. maybe a 1st round pick and a roster player that's young and cost-controlled and still on an upswing, I'd do that.That's the thing, you can't. Not much more than they have, and certainly not without cost.
The comparison isn't Zucker vs Kessel on the PP though, it's Zucker at ES and Schultz on the PP vs Kessel. Suddenly, that seems a lot less clear than Zucker vs Kessel in general.
You're probably right. But if they could, I'd do it. *If* you could get someone to take Johnson along with Kessel, with no salary retained, and we get back futures.. maybe a 1st round pick and a roster player that's young and cost-controlled and still on an upswing, I'd do that.
I could see a number of teams being interested in Kessel without any qualms about taking a bad deal along with him, maybe not even perceiving Johnson as having negative value. Teams with young cores that need a punch of offense to get over the next hump, and have cap room, like Arizona or Vancouver.
There are so many “not smart “ people in here, making even more “not smart” proposals. Ha
It's not really a "fantasy" when it seems pretty likely that the Penguins trade Kessel sometime in the next 3 years
I like Schultz plenty, but I don't have faith in him being able to slide into a a spot on the left half boards without the Pens missing a beat. Kessel isn't some afterthought there. Whatever his other foibles, he's our best PP player and the 2nd most productive PP player in the league over the last 2.5 years.
I'm adamant that I wouldn't want to see Kessel leave without getting an elite winger like Skinner or Stone to replace him. If we simply want to add another top 6 winger, there are various ways to do that without parting with an elite winger on a great deal. We have draft picks, prospects, and a ton of other players who aren't living up to their contracts. I'd exhaust every possibility involving those before entertaining a deal where we move Kessel just to get Zucker.
The difference is that Kessel excels on the PP because of Crosby and Malkin. Much like Neal did.Then I think the PP is weighted far too lightly. There isn't a minor difference between Kessel and Zucker on the PP, it's night and day.
Kessel's been the most productive player on our PP. You can't just replace your best PP player and expect no significant dropoff if you throw Bjugstad or someone of that calibre in his place. That really undervalues what Kessel does out there.
I like Schultz plenty, but I don't have faith in him being able to slide into a a spot on the left half boards without the Pens missing a beat. Kessel isn't some afterthought there. Whatever his other foibles, he's our best PP player and the 2nd most productive PP player in the league over the last 2.5 years.
I'm adamant that I wouldn't want to see Kessel leave without getting an elite winger like Skinner or Stone to replace him. If we simply want to add another top 6 winger, there are various ways to do that without parting with an elite winger on a great deal. We have draft picks, prospects, and a ton of other players who aren't living up to their contracts. I'd exhaust every possibility involving those before entertaining a deal where we move Kessel just to get Zucker.
Schultz wouldn't, Letang would. Schultz would be the PPQB on that top unit and Letang would be in Kessel's spot, which is a role he has had success in before. It's a similar setup to what the Penguins had when Gonchar and Letang were both on the Penguins.
You don't need an elite winger to replace Kessel, that's just the point that people here are making. If you get someone who can put up 40 ES points, generate chances and bring something else to the table (like defensive ability, speed, puck retrieval and such), you're getting more out of them at ES than you've gotten out of Kessel. At that point, it depends on how the Schultz/Letang PP unit does, which I don't have any reason to doubt.
This is flawed thinking because again you are only looking at production and not the fact that teams have to gameplan for Kessel every shift because he is extremely dangerous at any given time... no one is planning for rust. Nobody cares about the really good players... everyone has them...
the staff knows this which is why they keep trying to put kessel on a third line when they can, and why they tolerate his floating during the regular season...
If they trade him for an elite defenseman thats great but then they fundamentally have to change how they play cause most of the forwards on this team think offense first too often... if they want to play balls to the walls offense, they cannot do that without another guy that’s dangerous all over the ice...
The bottom line is Kessel isn’t going to be a cap dump or traded for prospects or picks... unless of course it is a three way deal to bring in another dynamic player...
This is the window the pens have, and they cannot be trading high end players for bit players in bulk... or picks... their best bet is to run this group into the ground, trade or retire older Sid and Malkin in several years, and totally rebuild through the draft
Based on what does every team "gameplan for Kessel every shift"? That just seems to be you making an assumption and passing it off as fact. I wouldn't imagine teams would "gameplan" for Kessel anymore than they would "gameplan" for guys like Skinner or Radulov.
Kessel is a complementary piece, I think some people overrate him into being more than that.
Wonder what the oilers would want for Jesse Puljujarvi?
They are up against the cap pretty bad. This guy has had a lot of potential and could be interesting to see what he could do on this team. He is only 20 so most likely would take a full year or so for him to get the pens system.