Phil Kessel's Battle Level is on Display Again as he Chases a Canucks Contract

Despite his impressive Ironman streak, Phil Kessel has yet to suit up for an NHL game since last April. But, as he begins to get some conditioning under his belt with the AHL's Abbotsford Canucks, could Kessel return for one last hoorah in the NHL?

When Phil Kessel hit the ice in Abbotsford for the first time last week, reports focused on how he wasn't able to keep up with the pace of play.

Now 36, Kessel hasn't played in an NHL game since Apr. 24, 2023, and is certainly in the back nine of his career. But while his public persona can make him seem like he’s too cool for school, an elite battle level has defined his career.

Selected fifth overall by the Boston Bruins in 2006, Kessel and No. 2 pick Jordan Staal were the only players from their class to play NHL games in the season after they were drafted. Both lasted the full year, but in December, Kessel was knocked out of action as he underwent treatment for testicular cancer at age 19.

Just a month later, he was back with the Bruins after missing only 12 games. He finished out the year with 29 points in 70 games — well back of the 85 points from rookie leader and Calder Trophy winner Evgeni Malkin, who was drafted two years earlier. But Kessel’s determination through a uniquely challenging NHL debut earned him the Bill Masterton Trophy for perseverance and dedication to hockey. He is the only rookie ever to have been presented with the award.

In 2009, recently installed Toronto general manager Brian Burke thought enough of Kessel’s offensive talent to give up two first-round picks and a second-rounder to bring the 22-year-old to the Maple Leafs. That outsized price tag instantly put Kessel under the microscope in hockey’s most intense market. He piled up the points, but his laissez-faire approach with the media and a perceived lack of attention to fitness and conditioning made his six seasons in The Six a battle as well.

But was he out of shape? His speed down the wing was a key part of what made him such a lethal scorer.

“When he does the squat tests, he's always in the top five of every team he's on,” said Rick Tocchet as Kessel approached the NHL Ironman record of 990 consecutive games in October of 2022. “His leg strength is great. Do you wish as a coach that he would do some more cardio every once in a while? Well, yeah. And he'll tell you, ‘I need my rest, I need my rest.’ We used to laugh about that. But he's a freak. He's a natural freak athlete.”

Kessel also had the hockey sense and physical dexterity to steer clear of a good deal of on-ice contact. Mix in a high enough pain tolerance and you've got an Ironman record — which is a regular-season tally that is still alive, even though he was scratched for all but four games of last season's championship playoff run in Vegas.

With three Cup rings and 992 career points, Kessel's resume stands up pretty well against other Hall of Famers. But other than the standouts who had their careers cut short due to injury, most of the forwards in the Hall have cracked the 1,000-point threshold. 

This spring, that mark might be one that Kessel would like to reach just as much as he'd like to chase another championship with the coach who became known as 'The Kessel Whisperer' for his savvy handling of the strong-willed sniper during the 2016 and 2017 Cup runs in Pittsburgh and with the Arizona Coyotes.

Since his arrival in Vancouver in January of 2023, Tocchet has consistently demonstrated a top-tier ability to connect and communicate.

His players appreciate his willingness to engage in give-and-take dialogues and local media members enjoy candid pressers filled with honest assessments and sharp observations.

Those same talents likely helped forge Tocchet's special connection with Kessel. But there's no way that the coach is going to abandon his team-first culture of accountability to wedge a player who can't help onto a roster that's clicking so well. Not even a player like Kessel, who's also known as a top-shelf teammate.

"I don't know where he is, in shape," Tocchet said last Wednesday on the NHL on TNT's 'Chicletscast.' "I know the one thing, he can pass the puck, and we'll see where it goes. The first phase is the next four, five days. See where he's at, physically, before we even entertain anything from there."

The odds of a successful comeback after such a long layoff are long for older players, but not insurmountable. Just this year, at age 34, Cam Atkinson has returned to play a regular role with the Philadelphia Flyers after missing the entire 2022-23 season with a neck injury. His teammate, Sean Couturier, is younger at 31, but he's back after missing nearly two years with back issues. 

Kessel also has one big advantage over those players. He hasn't been rehabbing an injury, just healing up from the bumps and bruises that he accumulated during his 1,064-game Ironman streak that stretches back to 2009. And Father Time doesn't prey on hockey sense as aggressively as players' physical tools. 

If Kessel's singular leg strength has held up, maybe he can pull this off and write one more chapter in his distinctive NHL career.