Hope everyone had a great summer; enjoy your final weekend of freedom. But first: a quick blog on Phil Kessel.
The three-time Stanley Cup champion wants to play again in 2023-24. But, the most significant detail is that he’s let teams know it won’t be a problem if he’s not an every-day player.
Kessel is the NHL’s Ironman, the only player in league history to play at least 1,000 games in a row. His current streak is 1,064 — 75 more than Keith Yandle, whose record Kessel broke last season. (Kessel did not appear in all of Vegas’s playoff games, but the postseason does not factor into consecutive games records.)
Letting teams know this detail in advance is important, because ending these streaks causes enormous stress if there is not buy-in from the player. In 2020-21, for example, Florida teammates made their displeasure very clear when the Panthers wanted to scratch Yandle from the lineup at the start of the season. He didn’t miss a game.
Kessel had 14 goals and 36 points last season, so he’s still a factor. He’s also eight points from 1,000. The other thing that helps him is, at age 35, he’s eligible to sign a one-year minimum contract with bonuses that could slide to next season. There’s not much cap space available right now, so that’s a benefit for anyone seeking a scorer.
Carolina’s Brent Burns, by the way, has the next-longest active streak, at 761 games.
We’ll see where this goes over the next few weeks, but Kessel’s making a concession to keep things going.