‘Burgh’s best to wear it, No. 81: Phil Kessel became a Stanley Cup champion with the Penguins

The Tribune-Review sports staff is conducting a daily countdown of the best 100 players in Pittsburgh pro and college sports history to wear each jersey number.

Approximately 25 minutes after the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1, in Game 7 of the 2016 Eastern Conference finals, Phil Kessel offered a rare bit of emotion to reporters.

He was laughing, giddy with excitement over advancing to a Stanley Cup Final for the first time in his career.

“I’m so thrilled right now,” said Kessel, who usually treated questions in a passive-aggressive tone. “I … I … I … don’t know what to say. Um … this … is a … uh … a huge moment in my career. I have nothing but good things to say about everybody here … Ha … ha!”

Almost three weeks after that, Phil Kessel was a Stanley Cup champion.

And just over a year after that, Phil Kessel was a two-time Stanley Cup champion.

The Penguins embraced Kessel’s idiosyncratic nature after he was discarded by the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, and he rewarded them with two dominant individual playoff runs while largely playing with the highly popular “HBK” line with Carl Hagelin and Nick Bonino. During the Penguins’ Stanley Cup runs of 2016 and ’17, Kessel had 45 points (18 goals, 27 assists) in 49 combined games.

Kessel’s best regular season came in 2017-18, when he put up 92 points (34 goals, 58 assists) in 82 games. But he followed that with a lackluster performance in the 2018 postseason, scoring only one goal in 12 games as the Penguins were beaten by the rival Washington Capitals in the second round.

An embarrassing sweep by the New York Islanders in the first round of the 2019 playoffs — and the fact he only scored one goal — led to the Penguins jettisoning Kessel, the franchise’s record holder for most consecutive games played (328), in an offseason trade to the Arizona Coyotes.

He was only with the Penguins for four years, but his impact on the franchise was undeniable. Just have to look at the team’s two most recent Stanley Cup banners to recognize that.

Other No. 81s of note:

• Tight end Elbie Nickel was one of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ best players in the franchise’s mostly wretched existence before the 1970s. A 15th-round pick in 1947, Nickel became a three-time Pro Bowler as a tight end while playing in era before the position was even identified by that term. By the time he retired in 1957, Nickel held the franchise record for receptions with 329.

• Wide receiver Charles Johnson was a first-round pick in 1994 who was a member of the Steelers’ Super Bowl XXX team and produced a 1,000-yard season in 1996.

• There were other big names who wore No. 81 in Pittsburgh. But none had a better name than Miroslav Satan. A free-agent signing in 2008, Satan impishly contributed 17 goals and 36 assists for the Penguins in 2008-09 and helped them win the Stanley Cup in ’09.

Check out the entire ’Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.