Here is the great thing about the way Kessel handled this (and he did handled it perfectly): He. Punched. Back.
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For his entire career, Phil Kessel has been a punching bag for everybody in hockey to take their shots. A lot of it has been deeply personal, and has revolved around his commitment, his fitness, and pretty much everything about him as a hockey player, whether it is justified or not.
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For the most part, his response has been to remain silent, not say anything, and just take it (except for that one time he called Dave Feschuk an idiot — he kind of responded there).
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This time, though, he didn’t remain silent. He punched back. And given the crap he has had to deal with in his career, it was probably long overdue.
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Team USA took a punch at him this year when they didn’t even ask him to play in the World Cup after he has not only been one of the most productive American-born players in the NHL, but has also been a dynamic player for Team USA in the past. Whether or not he would have been able to play in the tournament after recovering from offseason surgery is irrelevant. He didn’t have the surgery until after it was clear he was not going to make the team, and it’s the process behind USA’s decision that is worthy of the criticism.
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In 26 games in the World Championships and Olympics, he has scored 14 goals for Team USA (that would be a 44-goal pace over an 82-game NHL season), including five in the 2014 Sochi games. Nobody else scored more on that team, or even came close to it. In fact, it you combine the 2014 Olympics and the 2016 World Cup (a tournament he, again, did not play in), nobody on Team USA has scored more.
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Dean Lombardi, the architect of Team USA’s latest hockey failure, punched again on Thursday morning when he defended his decision to take grinders like Backes, Justin Abdelkader and Brandon Dubinsky (who didn’t even dress in the one game — Canada — that he seemed to be specifically picked to play in).
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Players, executives and coaches have punched at him because he is an outlier in the North American hockey factory where everybody is trained and expected to play the same grind-it-out style, where leaving the game with blood all over your jersey seems to be the only thing that makes you a real hockey player.
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The media punches at him because he doesn’t like to talk, and when he does, gives boring quotes and can be a little standoffish.
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Just look at some of the things that have been said and written about Kessel during his 10-year career in the NHL from different people at all levels. It is scathing, personal, and at times even completely fabricated nonsense.
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If you didn’t know anything about Kessel’s career and what he has accomplished you would probably read things like that and think these people are talking about a player that has been a complete failure in the NHL, doesn’t care about whether or not he succeeds, and wilts under the pressure of tight-checking, intense playoff games.
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The reality of Kessel’s career is the exact opposite.
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This is a person that has beaten cancer during his playing career.
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He has played in more than 95 percent of the games he has been eligible to play in and has never played in fewer than 70 games in an NHL season.
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He has not missed a game of any kind over the past six years, something only four other players in the NHL (Patrick Marleau, Karl Alzner, Keith Yandle, and Andrew Cogliano) can currently claim.
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When the lights shine the brightest, so does he. When things get physical and intense in the playoffs, he is nearly a point-per-game player (better than his regular season production) and this past spring was the best player in the postseason for the Stanley Cup champions while playing through an injury that required offseason surgery.
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If anything, this is the type of player hockey people should love.
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He has overcome adversity. He is “clutch” and elevates his game at the biggest times. He is the type of player you can count on because he is always there when the puck drops and you know at the end of the season he is going to score 25-30 goals. And based on his reaction to not being there for Team USA — again, a program he has been wildly productive for in the past — he clearly gives a damn.
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But because he doesn’t play the way some people want him to play, or look the way some people want him to look, or cooperate the way some people want him to cooperate, he gets punched. Repeatedly.
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Well, he punched back. And he punched back in the best possible way, at some of the people that deserved it the most.
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And it was perfect.
