How Much Better Does Phil Kessel Make the Penguins?

Just when it looked like the championship window was closing on the Pittsburgh Penguins, their front office has gone and forced it back open again. This offseason, the Penguins refused to stand pat. They went out and got Phil Kessel, who was on the block as part of the Maple Leafs rebuilding plan.

The response from fans and the media has been immediate. Pittsburgh fans are elated. The Toronto press is convinced that Kessel is a bum who eats too many hot dogs. Who is right, and how much better are the Penguins now?

Well, let’s get this out of the way first: Phil Kessel does a lot more than eat hot dogs. He led the team in points in the 2014-15 season. He did the same in 2013-14, 2012-13, 2011-12, 2010-11, and 2009-10. The last time anyone other than Phil Kessel led the Maple Leafs in points was 2008-09 – when Kessel was still in Boston. Kessel has also regularly led the Leafs in goals and assists during his tenure. And over the past four seasons, only Alex Ovechkin scored more goals than Kessel. Phil Kessel is very, very good at hockey.

So how does he fit into this Pittsburgh Penguins team? Well, no matter where you put a player like Kessel, he’s going to help. The question that the Penguins coaching staff will have to answer is which line Kessel will join. As the team’s new top right winger, it would stand to reason that Kessel would play on the first line with the top center. That’s Sidney Crosby, of course. But Crosby’s line worked fairly well last year, and the Malkin’s second line could stand to be tinkered with. It may make sense to push Kessel back to the second line, which would give the Penguins a frighteningly good one-two punch.

One place where Kessel could help the Penguins enormously is on the power play. The Penguins could use a right-handed shot on the power play. Malkin is right-handed, but the Penguins usually set him up on the point. That sometimes leaves them with a left-handed player (such as Sidney Crosby) set up to the right side of the crease, where a one-timer is tougher to pull off. With Kessel down near the goal, the Penguins are more of a threat from both sides of the goal. That could help the team’s power play, which is decent (tenth in the league by percentage) but has been prone to some cold streaks in the past couple of seasons.

It goes without saying that the Penguins are better now that they have the second-best goalscorer of the past few years in their corner. But the impact could be even greater if Kessel can improve the Penguins’ powerplay. A careful decision about which line Kessel gets will also help determine how much of an improvement the Penguins see in their team.

The bottom line is simple: a team that looked to be in decline quite recently has extended its championship window. The Penguins will make the playoffs yet again this year, and they have every reason to believe that they can lift the Stanley Cup when all is said and done.