Anaheim Ducks: Kesler takes Johansen rivalry to next level. Is there more to it?

Last night while you were closing out a nice summer weekend, Anaheim Ducks center Ryan Kesler was busy on twitter. RK17 challenged his Nashville nemesis, Ryan Johansen, to a street fight.

Anaheim Ducks center Ryan Kesler took a break from his 2018-19 preparations to reignite his feud with Nashville’s Ryan Johansen. While Ducks Nation thought their alternate captain would be hip deep in rehabilitation about now, Kesler has another agenda. Is there a hidden meaning to his message?

The Particulars

Shortly before dinner time on the west coast, Ryan Kesler sent out a challenge to a familiar foe:

Can you imagine how the tweet took off from there? Johanson was maybe out with friends or sacked out on his couch watching TV when his phone blew up with text messages. You know what I mean, stuff like: “Bro, I can’t believe he called you out like that” or “you can’t let that guy get away with this.” It’s how our society works in 2018.

After what I’m sure was a good couple of hours trying to figure out the best way to respond to the challenge, Johansen came back with:

I like that reply. It’s an acceptance as well as pretty funny. It shows you the amount of malice the Preds center has toward Kesler. Johansen could have taken the high road in many different ways but chose not to. Instead “it’s on.”

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Between the Lines

Rather than rehashing the history between these two combatants (yes, I’ll still show the fight video), I want to take this in a different direction. It was only 10 weeks ago when Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Kesler may miss the entire 2018-19 in order to rehabilitate from his hip injury.

There are codes and unwritten rules in both hockey and life. One doesn’t challenge someone else to a fight and not intend to show up. Kesler has to be somewhat serious about being in Nashville when the teams square off on November 25. Not only serious about being in town, but also about being in the lineup. Otherwise, he looks like a coward.

Pucks of a Feather, as well as many other outlets, have run stories all summer about how the Anaheim Ducks would make due without RK17 this season. After all, the signs were there. The biggest one was Adam Henrique‘s five year, $29.1M extension.

Why would GM Bob Murray give Henrique top six pay, to play center, when he already has $17.5M committed to Kesler and Ryan Getzlaf for the next few seasons? He had to know something. Even if the cap goes up to $81M next season, the Ducks will have almost 29% of it tied up to three players at the same position.

It makes no sense for Murray to extend Henrique’s deal if Kesler was back to his old self. If Friedman was right about Kesler sitting out his year. The Ducks would still have Henrique under contract in 2018-19, he wasn’t a free agent.

Unless this whole twitter challenge is a “work” (pro wrestling slang for a storyline), we can expect to see RK17 slot in with his usual linemates Andrew Cogliano and Jakob Silfverberg by the second month of the season.

Was Friedman wrong back in May? Is Kesler challenging himself to be ready in addition to challenging Johansen to a fight? We won’t know until training camp opens next month. RK17 needs to tread carefully because nobody wants to see the shell of a player he was at the end of last season.