Bet You Didn't Know One Tweet Could Define A Player's Entire Career Until Don Cherry Spoke On Phil Kessel

Just sitting around the house tonight w my dog. Felt like I should be doing something important, but couldn't put my finger on it.

— Phil Kessel (@PKessel81) September 21, 2016

“Ah ya know Kessel was playin' it perfect and then he had to go after they lost and say those things. I don't understand it. And now you know why nobody wanted him in Boston. Why he didn't make the All-Star team. And why they got rid of him in Toronto. You just don't do those things when guys are down. I don't know why Kessel did that. He was playing it perfect.” - Don Cherry (h/t PuckDaddy)



​Welp, I guess I am glad that's cleared up. Kind of feel guilty for laughing at a hilarious Phil Kessel tweet when it was retroactively responsible for all the tumultuous circumstances he has dealt with throughout his career. I thought I was just properly acknowledging a joke at the expense of a USA hockey program that deserved every ounce of mockery they received. Nope. Apparently I was celebrating the trials and tribulations of the person that made it.

How could I have been so silly? Phil Kessel didn't get shipped out of Boston because Toronto offered them a king's ransom for his services. He didn't get scapegoated out of a Maple Leafs organization that was a complete dumpster fire at the time. No sir. He brought it all on himself by lightheartedly criticizing teams he wasn't chosen to play for on social media. Not saying that he got cancer by trolling people online, but if it's culpable for everything else he's dealt with then is it really out of the question? Pretty surprising all his disparaging internet antics - that were directed at people that refused to reward his talent - have flown under the radar for this long when beneath it all they've been the anchor that's kept his career from sailing off into the sunset.

He was playing it so perfectly too. I thought he finally turned a corner. Just sitting at home keeping quiet about his inexplicable exclusion from international play. Too bad his twitter fingers got a little itchy. Can't help but think this is the beginning of the end of his time in Pittsburgh. I know he was the primary catalyst that helped them raise the Stanley Cup three months ago, but the Penguins organization simply can't have it's players going around openly critiquing the management of teams that aren't their own. Forget the timely goals and uncanny chemistry with his line mates, because making people that lost in embarrassing fashion feel bad about it by poking fun at those that selected them is an unforgivable misstep.