Kesler is not the player fans, the media, the management, thinks he is. He is the best third line C in the game or a great winger and the best part of his game is playing big and taking advantage of his body size and reach, and his hits. If he still has that shot he hasn't done much to demonstrate that since padding his stats with a bucket of powerplay goals in 2010-2011. Can't complain because nobody else on the team is scoring enough but just consider a few basic concepts: The good players in this game make others around them better. Kesler does not do this. Kesler takes the puck and tries to ram it through 3 defending players before chucking the puck at a teammate as a last ditch effort to maintain possession. Lost count of how many times that happened during transition, it's so frustrating to watch one guy trying to beat everyone by himself and failing. Look at him for what he is. He is not a snipe shot with accuracy, in other words he's not a Perry or a Stamkos type guy, and he's not a playmaker. He got 41 goals one season and 50 assists during another and both seem to be an anomaly. He's not a guy that makes his teammates better, apparently, or the guys on his line jst don't have enough finish. The man gets prickly when people ask him about it, and other things. He's not a thick skinned guy or a typical locker room leader. John Toews never sounds mopey or deflective, even pissy during interviews. Ryan Kesler is a great third line centre and this year we saw what he can do when the going gets rough- did he put the team on his back and go into the beast mode everyone talked about for so long? No. Seen him do it over the course of 2-3 games once or twice a year though. The expectations on the guy are totally unrealistic, and to me anyway he's not what people think he is. If he succeeds somewhere else it will be due to other players making him more effective, something outside the scope of the big man's game he plays. He won that selke for being enthusiastic without the puck but tbh he looked uninterested this year and we've probably seen the best of him as a Canuck already. When the going gets tough , the rats flee the sinking ship, and the captain stays on board. Is Ryan the 'captain' of this team, or now that the going got rough, is he seeking a way out?