CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- "It's been an interesting year, right?"
Phil Kessel does that all the time. Ends maybe every other sentence with " ... right?" as if he's searching for an answer to something. It's awesome, really. One of his more endearing traits and one of his more revealing. He's kind of like the down-to-earth dude who just plopped down next to you at the bar and is ready to reveal all.
Except that, in this case, there really isn't much to reveal.
The subject I'd just raised, minutes after the Penguins' practice Monday at the Lemieux Sports Complex, was whether or not Kessel was having fun. And he knew instantly what I'd meant. We'd brought this up last summer, on that stunning, stirring July 1 afternoon when he was acquired from the Maple Leafs, when his freedom from hockey hell and his joining Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin was supposed to merge into merriment on all fronts. Not to mention 40 or 50 goals, minimum.
And yet, here we are, at the precise halfway point of the 2015-16 season, and Kessel has been ... OK. He's got 12 goals, which is OK, and 12 assists, which is OK, and he's appeared in every game as always, and he's got only two power-play goals and ... that's about it.
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