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Phil Kessel sounds off on Leafs coach Ron Wilson

Honda NHL SuperSkills

during the Honda NHL SuperSkills competition part of 2011 NHL All-Star Weekend at the RBC Center on January 29, 2011 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Kevin C. Cox

With how the Toronto Maple Leafs season has gone, you’d think a backlash of opinion from the players would’ve started a lot sooner than today. Instead, Leafs All-Star forward Phil Kessel is sounding off after being fed up with how things are going with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Kessel sounded off to the media as the Leafs continue to struggle in the Northeast Division and his opinions on coach Ron Wilson, and Wilson’s on Kessel, were not very pleasant as Globe & Mail reporter James Mirtle shared today.

Asked Sunday whether Wilson has offered any advice given his struggles, Kessel offered some troubling insight into how the dynamic with his coach works.

“No, me and Ron don’t really talk,” Kessel told a group of reporters after practice. “So that’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

Wilson was only slightly more enlightening on the subject.

“Phil doesn’t really want to talk much about goal scoring or even work on it that much in practice,” Wilson said. “It’s kind of a ‘touch’ thing. So he comes and goes into these hot streaks, cold streaks.”


Having frustrating words coming out of a star player on a bad team is nothing new, but when it happens in Toronto it is a big deal and for Kessel to sound off makes matters a bit worse. Is it a coaches quarrel gone wrong or a player just sounding off on how bad the team has been all season long? Your guess is as good as ours in respect to that but with how the Leafs season has gone and how Kessel has struggled to get goals, the likely choice is “all of the above.”

Kessel has 19 goals and 15 assists this season and a -22 rating. For all the good he’s been able to do for the Leafs it’s been compounded by the amount of goals scored against the team when Kessel is out there. It’s just a factor of how things have gone in Toronto this season and a sign that things could be ready to bubble over there this year. With trade rumors swirling around the rest of the team, Kessel isn’t going anywhere as his trade from Boston created a huge price to pay for the Leafs. Still, it’s a bad sign for a Toronto team that’s lingering on to hope that they can rally at all to sneak into the playoffs.