Toronto in large part is where they are because they have spent so much building around a guy who doesn't feel the need to constantly be improving his game.
There's nothign ridiculous about it.
There is no hate on my part.
Some guys have high end skill and spend their careers working at trying to get the rest of their game to the best level possible.
Kessel has shown time and time and time again he is not one of those players.
He is happy to go out there and score his goals.
Everything else? That's not his problem.
There's a whole lot of excuse making going on in here for Kessel.
Players in his position get all of the praise when their team does well, yet some in here are reluctant to place any of the blame when things don't go well.
"Oh it's not Kessels' fault, he's on a bad team".
He chose to re-sign on that bad team.
He constantly chooses to be the first off the ice in practice.
Who knows where Toronto might be today if Kessel had taken the same type of approach to his game that Pacioretty has in the last few years.
Imagine that kind of high end talent going out there and setting an example for the rest of the team defensively?
Kessel is a massive part of the problem in Toronto right now.
Rebuild around Kessel? If you think they've been trying to build around Kessel, then you must see they've done a terrible job surrounding him.
Who do you think is better at moving the puck up to you, Markov - PK or Phaneuf - Franson?
Who do you think you can let you cheat a bit more? Bernier/Reimer or Price?
Toronto is where it is because their team sucks and they don't suck because Kessel doesn't score. They do because their Defense and Goaltending are horrible.