Why Phil Kessel wasn't traded
The Ironman Phil Kessel is in the final year of his contract. The two-time Stanley Cup champion would upgrade every teams top 6 forward group. So it made sense for the Arizona Coyotes to shop him and try to get something before he possibly walked away in the offseason.
So why weren't the Coyotes able to get anything for him? There are actually multiple reasons why a deal couldn't be made. Kessel has an modified no-trade clause where he submits an 8-team trade list. Obviously Kessel can always waive it if he wants. But the biggest roadblock was salary.
Phil Kessel has an $8 million cap hit, but the Toronto Maple Leafs retained $1.2 million of that. But there still aren't many teams at this point in the season who have $6.8 million in cap space. The other option was that the Coyotes could retain some salary. But after Arizona retained salary in the Johan Larsson trade, the Coyotes were already at their maximum. Teams can only retain up to 3 players salary and they already had retained on the previous trades of Darcy Kuemper and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. So once they retained Larsson's salary it was going to be near impossible to move Kessel. Phil Kessel and his wife just welcomed a newborn baby just a few weeks ago. He could just be happy staying where he is for now.
It will be interesting to see where Kessel ends up this summer.
