"I'll probably get booed," Kessel said with a laugh. "It’s part of the game, and what can you do?"
But Kessel has nothing but fond memories of the fans that cheered him on during the first three seasons of his NHL career.
"To tell you the truth, I loved being there and loved the city, loved the fans, but it just didn’t work out," Kessel said. "They were great. They treated me great and always supported me, and unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
But when asked why it didn’t work out, Kessel stuck to the stance that he and his agent, Wade Arnott, have held all along: It was the Bruins who didn’t want him back and wanted to head in a "different direction."
“In the end , they ended up going in a different direction, and that’s the way it goes," Kessel told NESN.com in a phone interview on Friday. "That’s their choice."
After scoring 36 goals last season, Kessel was set to become a restricted free agent, and at the NHL draft in June, he was reportedly offered to the Maple Leafs in a deal that would have brought defenseman Tomas Kaberle to Boston. Later in the summer, Kessel, according to ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun, turned down a four-year, $16 million offer from the Bruins. Upon arriving in Toronto, he signed a five-year, $27 million deal.
Kessel admitted that as things developed after the reported draft deal went awry, he and Arnott began to realize they may have reached an impasse with Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli.
“I didn’t know right away that it would end up that way,” Kessel recalled. “But as it went on, it looked like that would happen, and it did. So that’s how it is. I’m happy now in Toronto. I really like it here, and I’ve moved on.”
Chiarelli, in a recent interview with The Boston Globe, disagreed with Kessel’s assessment of how things unraveled.
“Painted into a corner,’’ Chiarelli told the Globe. “Phil has a special skill set. But the circumstances were such that we couldn’t get him signed here. He didn’t want to be in Boston.’’
Kessel also maintained his belief that his benching by head coach Claude Julien during the first round of the Canadiens-Bruins series in 2008 was not necessary and no lesson was learned from it.
“I don’t think it needed to happen, personally," he said, "but it happened and you just roll with the punches.”
Kessel declined to say much about his relationship with Julien — now and throughout the course of his time in Boston — and he hasn’t spoken to him since being traded.
The Bruins still believe, however, that Kessel's time in a Bruins uniform helped him become the player he is today.
“He’s a good player, a very good player,’’ Chiarelli said. “But that was never a question. We always said he would score, and he has, and I think he’d say that he benefited from playing here.’’
But both sides have moved on now. Kessel is on fire heading into Saturday night’s game, scoring two goals in his last game and 10 in the 15 games he has played since returning from offseason surgery for a torn rotator cuff. Meanwhile, the Bruins are hovering around first place in their division and lately looking like the team many picked to contend for the Stanley Cup.
Life goes on and will go on for Kessel and his former team.
