Motivating and pushing a group of individuals to a collective goal when they have their own aspirations, goals, backgrounds, and skills is a demanding task regardless of the context. Leadership is hard. Difficult choices have to be made, ego has to be handled, and every move needs to be made with the final goal and overall good of the group in mind.

I will never be convinced that any professional hockey team is better or more likely to achieve their goals without the services of Pittsburgh right wing Phil Kessel. The Penguins may be willing to see if that thesis is wrong because according to Josh Yohe of The Athletic, Kessel could be traded due to problems with head coach Mike Sullivan.

Yohe lists several grievances, but these two stick out.

"Kessel was furious that he wasn't deployed regularly on a line with Evgeni Malkin in the playoffs...Sullivan believed this attitude to be selfish....Multiple people in the Penguins organization believe Kessel was "pouty" about this situation and it could have affected his performance.

Two things are problematic here. The first is that Kessel is right. During the regular season when Kessel played with Derick Brassard instead of Malkin, the Penguins' Corsi For Percentage dropped 3 percentage points from close to 52 percent down to about 49, according to Natural Stat Trick. A leader will rarely win a power struggle when the other person in the struggle is verifiably correct.

Secondly, believing that he was being "pouty" and suggesting that this behavior hurt his performance is quite a jump in logic. What the data from Corsica says is that Kessel attempted more shots per 60 minutes than any Penguin outside of Jake Guentzel, but that he generated very few expected goals. He couldn't or wouldn't get into good scoring position in the playoffs. The verb you choose depends on your view of the player.

Here's the biggest problem with all of this.

Kessel is not a problem in the locker room. Is he an ideal role model for young players? Probably not.

Are the Penguins suddenly worried about developing young talent to build for the future? If so, are these young players flocking to Kessel instead of, I don't know, Sidney Crosby? Of course not. Should these theoretical young players get crossed up, I made a chart to help them stay on the straight and narrow.

I fully admit that I have no idea what is going on in the Penguins locker room. Kessel may, in fact, be a complete pain to try to manage. How much should that really matter in this situation?

The struggle to maintain discipline and order is real in any leadership position. One person can't be allowed to derail the mission of the larger group. Kessel is 30 years old, just had a career high of 92 points, and his teammates have no problem with him per the article. Based on what is known publicly, what is he derailing?

Trading Phil Kessel is silly, but if the Penguins want to be silly, someone will oblige them. The Dallas Stars should be that team because the chances of a better fit becoming available are slim to none.

Kessel will turn 31 when the season starts. He is under contact for four more years and the Toronto Maple Leafs are still paying $1,200,000 of his cap hit. The Stars would only be on the hook for $6,800,000 against the cap for a player on pace to be close to a 600 goal scorer. That salary figure is also conveniently close to the estimated amount the salary cap is going to go up, making a trade for Kessel essentially salary cap neutral.

He's a right wing. Currently that depth chart has Alexander Radulov and presumably Valeri Nichushkin on it. If you can find a way to add Kessel a potential weakness becomes a strength. Kessel had 42 points on the powerplay. Only four players on the Stars roster had more than 42 total points. Whatever his warts he can unquestionably help this team. Just adopt the Phil Kessel Flow Chart to help Heiskanen out should be find himself tempted to emulate his work habits.

Kessel won't be cheap, but these trade rarely work out poorly for the team acquiring the best player in the deal. As long as the ask doesn't involve Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, John Klingberg, Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell (maybe), or Radulov the price is unlikely to be prohibitive. Adding Kessel to that group would be a coup.

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