The Toronto Maple Leafs, who fired head coach Randy Carlyle on Tuesday, are a notoriously talented but inconsistent NHL team.
Leafs forward Phil Kessel is a notoriously gifted, but erratic player.
Could Kessel's tumultuous personality be having a direct influence on the entire nature of the Leafs team and, further, should Leafs GM Dave Nonis and President Brendan Shanahan look to move Kessel for the picks and/or players that would jump-start the organization on a path to rebuilding a more consistent, complete team?
"We are always looking at the core. Players are movable," Nonis said on an episode of Sportsnet Live. "None of them have full-move clauses. If there's a move that makes us better, we'll do it."
Kessel, argues Cathal Kelly of The Globe and Mail, is such a difficult, "corrosive" personality in the locker room, that even if the team didn't receive commensurate on-ice value in a deal, simply moving out his on again, off again antics would make up the difference.
As for the potential haul from moving Kessel, Pierre LeBrun, appearing on Ottawa's TSN 1200 on Wednesday, as transcribed by NicholsOnHockey.com, said that there are a myriad of GMs across the league that would be interested in acquiring the prickly scorer.
"...Believe me, I've talked to a number of GMs in the last 48 hours who said for sure they'd take Phil Kessel," LeBrun said. "But they're some of the GMs who feel that on their team, he'd be better-surrounded. And that he would probably feel some kind of peer pressure to conform to the way their culture is and would be better for it."
The Leafs, as currently constructed, may be able to sneak into the playoffs with a quality second-half under interim coach Peter Horachek, but they won't be winning a Stanley Cup championship.
As such, and taking into consideration TSN Insider Darren Dreger's assertion that in the wake of Carlyle's dismissal all Leafs players "are now available," should the team begin auctioning off major pieces like Kessel and captain Dion Phaneuf in the hopes of significant return?
It may be the only path - the only real, lasting path - to building a true winner that Shanahan and Nonis have at their disposal.
