Canucks have checked in on veteran winger Phil Kessel: report
The Vancouver Canucks could be adding a three-time Stanley Cup champion to their roster.
The organization has been checking in on free agent winger Phil Kessel, according to CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal.
“The Vancouver Canucks still talk and discuss Kessel. They keep in regular contact with his agent. They like his experience, what he’s done in the past,” said Dhaliwal on today’s edition of theĀ Donnie & DhaliĀ show.
“The Kessel decision, I’ve been told, is not far away. Some say soon. Not sure where this goes, but the Vancouver Canucks are poking around Phil Kessel.”
"The #Canucks are poking around Phil Kessel.."@DhaliwalSports on the #Canucks interest in Phil Kessel and if another big move will happen before the trade deadline.https://t.co/h4e2SKM7eJ pic.twitter.com/qAPU8npe33
— Donnie & Dhali (@DonnieandDhali) February 8, 2024
The 36-year-old played 82 games last season with the Vegas Golden Knights and finished with 14 goals and 22 assists for 36 points.
“There’s value in Phil, I think he can still play, 100%,” said Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet in a SportsnetĀ article by Luke Fox posted last week.
The American winger has 413 goals and nearly 1,000 career points over 1,286 NHL games. He needs just eight more points to break the 1,000-point barrier.
He’s won three Stanley Cups, including two with the Pittsburgh Penguins and one last season with the Golden Knights.
Kessel is a right-handed shot who would provide a scoring punch to any team’s bottom-six. While he’s a long way from his days of flirting with the 40-goal mark, he still managed to score at a decent rate last season.
The winger does currently hold the NHL’s ironman streak with 1,064 consecutive games played. He is the only player in NHL history to play at least 1,000 straight games without a single absence.
The forward would add more playoff experience to a roster where many of the core players have not been tested in the postseason. Kessel has played 100 playoff games and filled all sorts of roles on various teams.
He also has a previous connection to Canucks upper management. Jim Rutherford was the general manager for the Penguins when they won two Stanley Cups with Kessel on the roster. Tocchet was one of the assistant coaches for those teams and also coached the player in Arizona.
Could they all be reunited on the Canucks?
While the Canucks have a strong forward group, the playoffs are a test of depth, and another contributor never hurts. With his long history of playoff success, Kessel could be the perfect piece to the Canucks’ playoff puzzle.