Phil Kessel was not the Pens’ first choice in 2015.

[Three Stars]

T.J. Oshie was an earlier attempt, and it apparently was close enough that the player was told about it.

I like Oshie, but he doesn’t have that gamebreaker ceiling that Kessel did. Not that Kessel played at that ceiling always, but Oshie feels like it would have been another David Perron-like move.

https://russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2 ... -capitals/

https://www.monumentalsportsnetwork.com ... shie-trade

[Three Stars]

It also shows you the difference in franchise expectations. A guy picked up in 2015 was the essential factor for them to win a cup in 2018…after two more spectacular failures.

[Three Stars]

Going further down the Kessel rabbit hole.

https://grantland.com/the-triangle/atte ... sel-trade/

From the Penguins’ perspective, Kessel represents a gamble. The Penguins were already one of the most top-heavy teams in the league in terms of cap allocation, with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Marc-Andre Fleury all carrying pricey long-term deals. Depth has been an issue in Pittsburgh for years and will continue to be. The blue line still isn’t good enough. Fleury is still a hard guy to trust. And at least as of today, they’re tight against the cap.

And all that said, the deal is still worth it, because now they finally have an elite winger to play with Crosby (or Malkin). At $8 million, Kessel’s deal was fair but expensive. At $6.8 million, he could represent one of the better values in the league. Pittsburgh was given a gift by the lottery balls heading into the Crosby draft in 2005, and their window to turn it into Stanley Cups is closing. The Penguins are a far, far better team today than they were when the week began. The future might be murky, but that’s a problem for another day.

[Guinness]

The future might be murky, but that’s a problem for another day.

The murky future came and went. We're now entering headlong into the clearly not gonna be a good few years (and please be no more than that) stage.

It's kind of hard to believe that we're coming up on the 40th anniversary of drafting Mario... We as fans have been so fortunate to have such a string of generational talents, not to mention the world-class "supporting" cast. It's probably too much to ask of the hockey gods that we manage to draft another generational talents in the next few years... but I definitely am asking!

[KG]

Remember the conversation Fitzgerald and Rutherford were getting in on the draft floor? There was always speculation that they were hotly debating to go after Kessel or Oshie. This is one situation where it worked out for both Kessel and Oshie. Both became champions.