‘I left to win a cup, and I honestly regret that’: The rise and fall of Ryan Kesler’s Canucks career

The fans didn’t forget. They never forget. Not in Vancouver — the Canadian hockey market where Ryan Kesler used to be the centre of attention. He put his body on the line every night just for the chance to live out his childhood dream of lifting a 34.5 pound silver and nickel trophy over his shoulders.

That dream fell short, not only as he wept after the Vancouver Canucks’ 4–0 loss in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final on June 15, 2011, but in each painful playoff loss that preceded it, and each that followed, until his body was burnt out and could not give any more. His physical, hard-nosed style of play carried a limited shelf life. When he was on the ice, you felt him. His flame ravaged the arena, igniting his teammates while burning his opponents. The painful crosschecks after each faceoff. His short temper. His wicked wrist shot.

Kesler sat in the last row of the 100 level last Tuesday while Rogers Arena, which seats just under 19,000, chanted his name — more than a decade after he last donned the club’s blue and green. The fire had long been extinguished. He had soon after asked for a trade request amid the downfall of the 2011 core. The dream had taken him elsewhere. But history never dies.

“Ryan Kesler! Ryan Kesler! Ryan Kesler!”

One: Incipient

At first, there was smoke.

Kesler was young then, around 13 years old, innocent, unknown. Long before he arrived in Vancouver, and two years before he played for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, he was cut from every team he tried out for, he said on a 2022 Spittin’ Chiclets episode.

“You were soft,” Kesler’s brother later told him. “And then all of a sudden, you got cut from all these teams and you had a ‘F*** you’ to you that just came out of nowhere. You were going to make everybody pay.”

Like Michael Jordan being cut from his high school basketball team, this was Kesler’s villain origin story; the beginning of the “edge” he played with.

It was only a small chemical reaction at first, slowly igniting over a few moments on the ice in his rookie season. You’d see it in the way Kesler, who played on the fourth line in his first season in Vancouver, would scrum it up after each whistle. He acted bigger than what he was, but not bigger than the player he’d soon grow into.

“It really just evolved into just being a dick on the ice,” said Kesler.

Two: Growth

Kesler’s first season, 2003–04, coincided with Mark Messier’s last. The Canucks and the New York Rangers only played once — Feb. 2, 2004. Every time Kesler won a faceoff against Messier, the veteran made him pay. Messier would slash Kesler, each one adding a little more fuel to the fire. He’d cross-check him. He’d put him in a headlock. And he’d never be assessed a penalty. Messier, despite never being his teammate and only facing him in one game, was who Kesler learned from.

And when Kesler faced the new generation of stars — Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid — he’d give them the same treatment on faceoffs.

“It’s considered a battle, said Kesler. “And that’s allowed.”

Kesler carried this edge through his rise to stardom in Vancouver. The blaze grew every year. By 2007–08, he’d established himself as a two-way center. He scored a then-career-high 21 goals and 37 points. He was a shutdown player who played against the NHL’s best. He killed penalties. The next year, he was moved up to the second line. Again came career highs in offence: 26 goals, 59 points. The league had by now caught on. They felt the radiation. They took note. Kesler was voted a finalist for the Frank J. Selke Trophy. The next season, his offensive needle again moved: 25 goals, 75 points. Another Selke nomination. Along the way, he fought teammates in practice and showered his opponents with snow during warm-up.

“He was the ultimate competitor,” said Kevin Bieksa on a 2021 episode of The Wally and Methot Show. “But he didn’t know how to turn it off. When he woke up in the morning, he woke up and he hated your guts.”

We arrive at the 2010–11 season, his soul alight. Expectations are sky high for the Canucks following two straight second round exits to the Chicago Blackhawks. Kesler and the Sedin twins are in their prime. Alex Burrows remains on a bargain contract. The window of contention for the franchise’s first Stanley Cup is as open as it had ever been.

The Canucks had two options: win now, or watch that window slowly close on another chapter of great expectations. Leading the charge was Kesler, their emotional leader and a source of fuel, night in and night out.

Three: Fully developed

There is a YouTube video of Kesler’s highlights in the Canucks’ second round series against the Nashville Predators in 2011. He considered this series as the best hockey he played in his career. The video is one minute and 47 seconds long. It is simply titled, “BEAST MODE.”

Kesler had yet to find the back of the net in the playoffs as the Canucks and Predators split the first two games at Rogers Arena. He had four assists in the seven-game opening round against the Chicago Blackhawks, and would add another in Game 2 against Nashville.

But fire spreads quickly. It catches onto flammable material and ignites, growing by the second. If you’re talented enough, the puck tends to find you.

In Game 3, Kesler scored two goals, including the overtime winner, to give the Canucks a 2–1 series lead. These were the first of a five-goal explosion that lasted through Game 5. He added 11 assists in the six-game series, assisting on both goals in a 2–1 Game 6 victory as Vancouver eliminated Nashville.

“It just seemed like everything was going in,” he said.

The plume approached the ceiling. The fire had spread over the NHL, taking out Nashville, and soon after, the San Jose Sharks as it raged deeper into the forest of the playoffs.

The flame didn’t burn forever. Kesler blew his hip out after he got a new pair of skates, he said. It was the latest of an injury-riddled career that he played through. We add the last ingredient to the fire — toradol — the anti-inflammatory drug he’d been using since 2007, when he broke his finger in Game 1 of the playoffs against the Dallas Stars. Anything it took to stay in the lineup. Whatever it took to keep the fire burning.

“It's playoff time,” said Kesler. “You play injured. That's the way I was growing up. If you can go out there and lace your skates up and give 70, 80 percent, my thought is, ‘My 70 or 80 percent is better than the last guy’s 100 percent.’”

Four: Decay

After the Canucks’ loss to the Boston Bruins in the 2011 Final, the club failed to replicate the same level of success. The team flamed out in five games in the first round the following year. They were swept in the opening round the year after that, an unceremonious end to a season in which Kesler — limited by shoulder and wrist surgeries during the offseason and a broken foot during the season — appeared in 17 of Vancouver’s 48 games, scoring just four goals. 

The fire by now had started to cool. The club brought in John Tortorella in 2013–14 to give them a boost, but the Canucks missed the playoffs for the first time since 2008. A mostly-healthy Kesler managed 25 goals and 43 points — well below the 73 he put up in 2010–11.

Kesler was frustrated. The Canucks were frustrated. Again came another coaching overhaul and a new management regime. They were futile attempts at throwing fuel onto the decaying fire.

He wanted to win a cup. Seeing how things in Vancouver were trending, he requested a trade.

In Anaheim, he’d get close, but he fell short in each of the four playoff runs he was a part of. Each was a reminder of Kesler’s shortcomings in Vancouver. Another Game 7 loss at home in 2015. Another first round exit in 2016. Another opening round sweep at the jaws of the Sharks in 2018.

As the 2018–19 season came to a close, the Ducks well out of a playoff spot as they dwelled at the bottom of the Western Conference, Kesler’s body could give no more. He played his final NHL game — his 1,001st — on March 6, 2019.

The toradol had torched his insides since 2015. He needed hip resurfacing surgery. His offensive totals had dwindled in his final two seasons as he managed just 14 in 2017–18 and eight in 2018–19.

The fire had been extinguished. His body was a wreck. His reputation in Vancouver — the city he was revered for the majority of his playing career — was destroyed. The fans never forgot. Starting Nov. 20, 2014 and each time the Ducks rolled through the Pacific Northwest, he was booed relentlessly every time he touched the puck.

Kesler, now 40, sat in a locker room during a recent appearance on Donnie and Dhali. He was in British Columbia to coach his son’s Little Caesars team in the Pat Quinn Invitational. He wanted to show his kids the place where he grew up.

On Tuesday night, during the second period of his former team’s game against the Calgary Flames, he was served a reminder of how much he meant to the city. Hearing his name chanted was something he’d never forget. Maybe hearing the fans and seeing two of his closest friends from the 2011 team, Bieksa and Alex Edler, retire with the franchise on one-day contracts had changed the way he felt about his departure.

“I left to win a cup, and I honestly regret that,” said Kesler.

“People make mistakes, and the Canucks are very near and dear to my heart. I would love to retire a Canuck one day.”

History never dies. But time heals open wounds. The fans seemed like they had forgiven Kesler for how he left. They cheered for the memories he created. The big goals. The energy and fight he brought every night.

They didn’t forget. They never will.

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