On the Pittsburgh Penguins …
Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Mark Madden of Pittsburgh’s 105.9 FM said yesterday that the Pittsburgh Penguins are trying to trade forward Phil Kessel, and that “Kessel is OK with that.”
Madden’s says they will “try,” but Kessel does carry a $6.8 million salary cap hit and has a reputation of not being easy to coach.
Madden says this is coming from “sources close to the Penguins and to Phil Kessel.”
Kessel has wanted to play with Evgeni Malkin full-time and has never been given the chance and the “underlying dissatisfaction” between Kessel and coach Mike Sullivan according to Madden.
Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: believes that relationship between Phil Kessel and coach Mike Sullivan appears to have gone bad and that it contributed to Kessel’s underperforming playoffs.
Kessel can have an ego and is not easy to coach. Rick Tocchet was valuable to the Penguins before he left.
Penguins GM Jim Rutherford did say that Kessel has been dealing with injuries all season and that they caught up to him. Coach Sullivan said that Kessel had bumps and bruises like everyone else and they weren’t significant.
Kessel will probably be back with the Penguins next season, but believes that Rutherford will ‘seriously look into trading him.’ Rutherford would have traded in before the 2016-17 season if he had gotten the right offer.
Kessel will turn 31 in October and carries a $6.8 million salary cap hit through 2021-22.
Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: GM Rutherford hopes to get a contract extension done this offseason for Bryan Rust. Rutherford will also be looking for some more forward depth and on the blue line.
“I think we will probably look at getting a little more balance throughout the whole lineup,” Rutherford said. “We want to make sure we have the four lines that can produce. We may be able to do that from within, depending on how it gets structured.”
Adding a defenseman to ease the load on Kris Letang is something they will look at. It doesn’t have to be a right-handed defenseman, but Rutherford notes “you can never have enough good right shot defensemen.”
“Using the amount of minutes we were using him, I think it puts him in a tougher spot, certainly in a spot to make more mistakes,” Rutherford said of Letang, who averaged a team-high 25:15 in the regular season, which was 3:20 more than anyone else. “That’s why I’d like to get a defenseman that we could ease the minutes off of him. I believe if we do that, you’re going to see a different player.”