Pittsburgh Penguins and Minnesota Wild could be close to a Phil Kessel trade

The Pittsburgh Penguins and Minnesota Wild are deep in trade talks, and a move that sends Phil Kessel to the State of Hockey could be announced at any moment.

The Phil Kessel trade rumors have been red hot ever since the season ended for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and now a deal might be imminent for the Pittsburgh fan favorite.

As reported and confirmed by Josh Yohe of the Athletic, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Minnesota Wild have a trade proposal on the table that has Kessel as the center piece, and only a couple more kinks need to be worked out before the trade could officially goes through.

After a stunning first round sweep at the hands of the New York Islanders, it’s been well documented that the Penguins are exploring their options for a massive roster shakeup before next season, and nobody besides Sidney Crosby and Matt Murray is off limits, and that not only includes Kessel, it almost certainly means him.

Kessel has spent the last four seasons with the Penguins, helping lead them to back to back Stanley Cups in his first two seasons with the team. He finished last season with 82 points in 82 games, and three points in four playoff games. His contract runs for three more seasons at a $6.8 million cap hit.

Yohe also reports that 27 year old Jason Zucker would be a part of the return for the Penguins from the Wild. Zucker has also been known to be on the trade market after a botched trade with Calgary at the trade deadline, and Minnesota has previously shopped him around to team like Calgary, Arizona, and Vegas. Zucker scored 21 goals and posted 42 points in 81 games this season and has four years left on his contract at a $5.5 million cap hit.

It is also believed that the two would swap the long-term contracts of Jack Johnson and Victor Rask. Rask carries the higher cap hit of $4 million for the next three seasons compared to Johnson’s $3.25M for the next four seasons.

However, the hold up in this deal going through seems to be Kessel himself. According to Yohe, the deal for Kessel has been on the table for days but Kessel, who has an eight-team approved trade list in his contract, is hesitant about joining the Wild after doing his research on them. Perhaps Kessel sees that the Wild are on the decline, and doesn’t want to risk wasting the latter portion of his career only to end up in more trade rumors down the line.

Even if this trade doesn’t go through, that’s probably not a bad thing for either side. The Penguins can get a better return for Kessel than just Jason Zucker and some other pieces, and the Wild really don’t need to be making moves like trading for Phil Kessel right now when they need to build a new young core to break out of this stretch of mediocrity.

If the trade doesn’t go through in the next couple of days, there’s still regardless almost no doubt that this is the end for Phil Kessel in Pittsburgh as general manager Jim Rutherford continue to talk to the teams on Phil Kessel’s trade list, and a deal might still come sooner than later.