Top 5 Most Underrated Toronto Maple Leafs of All-Time

#3. Phil Kessel

In the Toronto Maple Leafs top-100 list of all-time, Kessel is ranked 48th.

That’s right in front of Walter “Babe” Pratt who had 83 total NHL goals as a winger. I know it’s really hard to compare era’s but Kessel is 18th in Leafs history for career goals and 20th all-time in career points.

In 446 career games with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Kessel scored 181 goals and had 394 points, so he averaged 0.41 goals per game, and 0.88 points per game. In comparison to all-time Maple Leafs’, that puts Kessel in elite company.

Those averages are just slightly below Mats Sundin, Wendel Clark and Darryl Sittler, but if Kessel played the same amount of games in the Blue-and-White as those individuals, he’d no doubt of ended his career in the top-five of all Maple Leafs’ career statistics.

In six seasons, Kessel barely missed a game. Although you could knock him at times for his defensive play, he was an offensive threat every time he stepped on the ice.

He had four seasons of 30-plus goals and his worst goal season came when he scored 20 goals in 2012-13, but that was a shortened year where they only played 48 games.

Based off his quirky personality, it felt that fans and the media never respected Kessel as much as they should. You have to remember that Kessel did most of his offensive work by himself as well.

During his time in Toronto, the best center he ever played with was Tyler Bozak, who no offensive to him, is best suited as a third-line player. Sure, Kessel won’t win you a Stanley Cup as the teams best player, but as we saw when he moved to Pittsburgh, he was the perfect secondary scoring option to Sidney Crosby and Evegni Malkin.

In terms of greatest goal-scoring talents in Leafs history, Kessel should be in the conversation every time.