Sidney Crosby is sitting in his stall wearing a black Penguins ball cap, which is where and how you’ll find him after every game, speaking softly and showing little emotion while reporters crowd around. Kessel, on the other hand, stands at the dressing room door, though not on the side of it he’d like. His black hockey bag is slung over his shoulder and he’s caught in a traffic jam caused by media still filing in after his team beat up on the Flyers 8-5 in Game 6 to cement their first-round series win, back in April. Kessel just wants out. “Didn’t you owe me a favour?” Kessel calls out to a teammate on the other side of the door, but he gets no help in return. A couple seconds later he finds an opening in the crowd and he’s gone.

Earlier tonight, he scored his first goal of the 2018 post-season when he streaked down the right wing, got a nice cross-ice saucer pass from Malkin and wristed it past Flyers goalie Brian Elliott, who was caught so off-guard that he looked between his pads as the lamp lit to find out where that puck had gone. But regardless of that on-ice production, which would necessitate a post-game scrum in most dressing rooms, Kessel doesn’t have to stand and uncomfortably face the cameras, wearing his hat and giving a string of “you know”-filled answers. As his former University of Minnesota teammate and one of his best friends, Winnipeg’s Blake Wheeler can confirm, “Phil is an introvert” — the spotlight isn’t his thing. Lucky for Kessel he’s not often forced into it in Pittsburgh. A request to interview him in the Penguins dressing room is met with a bit of a laugh from team staff, a promise to try to get him to come out and then the simple counteroffer: “We have a lot of scorers.” He’s off the hook.

As Crosby points out, having three marquee players who usually man different lines isn’t just good for creating offence and depth on the ice, it helps with off-ice tasks, too. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing, having those responsibilities and sharing,” Crosby told Sportsnet’s Christine Simpson. “That has been a big key for all of us.”