The hottest topic in Leafs Nation has been the 5'11'', 22 year old hockey all star Phil Kessel, who as of late has been ripping up the league ever since he got put with line mate Matt Stajan. These two have found remarkable chemistry together giving Stajan 25 points in 31 games and Kessel 19 points in 20 games. 18 out of 25 of Stajan's points have been scored playing with Phil Kessel. That stat should say it right there. Phil Kessel is turning this professional hockey club right around.
Kessel's confidence to score goals seems to be rubbing off on others. Ron Wilson stated "I think a lot of the scoring from Phil has rubbed off on guys, when you see a confident player it often rubs off on the rest of your team when you have a star player like that".
Before this rookie sensation played a game with his new hockey club, the big talk in Toronto was who Kessel was going to play with? A lot of hockey analysts and leafs fans have different ideas and opinions. No one really expected Stajan to have this much chemistry with Kessel as their having right now. It's a huge surprise for Leafs Nation to watch Stajan become such a key player for his team.
So as Wilson mentioned, confidence is the key. Explains a lot if you think about it. Jason Blake, Francois Beauchemin, and Lee Stempniak have a combined 12 points earned in their last 5 games. Watching Kessel may of rubbed off on a couple of those veterans, and it's surely not going unnoticed by Beauchemin. "What he does is he usually comes back and takes a big loop to get more momentum on his shot" Beauchemin stated, who has recognized how this young gun puts the puck in the net.
This 22 year old American born hockey star has 100% turned this entire club around. As the team watched Kessel come into this new atmosphere and start his point production right of the bat, they all gained confidence in this kid and turned their gameplay around. Before Kessel was healthy to play in the line up the Leafs were 1-7-4. With Kessel in the line up the Leafs turned around to be 10-7-3. Stats like that can prove to anyone that Phil Kessel's success in Toronto is rubbing off on all his other teammates and is making this team much more competitive.
The next question is, has enough confidence and success rubbed off for the Leafs to make the playoffs?
