MONTREAL – The meeting between Leafs general manager Dave Nonis and Phil Kessel last week had little to do with contract negotiations. Amir Johnson Jersey . Instead, Nonis and Kessel were sorting through the fallout of a wild melee with the Buffalo Sabres, one that saw Kessel suspended for the duration of the pre-season. "He brought up to me how important it was to stay," Nonis said on Tuesday afternoon of the conversation with Kessel. "And thats when we started negotiations. There werent negotiations early in camp. I wanted to hear from him and I wanted him to tell me that he wanted to be a Toronto Maple Leaf. And once he did, we worked quickly and were able to reach an agreement." Kessel, who will turn 26 on Wednesday, and the Leafs agreed to an eight-year deal that will pay the winger $8 million per season, keeping him in Toronto until beyond his 34th birthday. "Ive always wanted to be here," said Kessel, who expressed no interest in negotiating an extension during the season, the deadline thus ticking in recent hours. "Its a place I wanted to play, want to finish my career here. Its a great city. The organization is unbelievable and Im real excited to continue here." Only two players in the NHL have finished top-10 in league scoring in each of the past two seasons: Lightning star Steven Stamkos and Kessel. Its that level of production, not easily replaced in todays NHL, which enticed the Leafs to lock him up as a cornerstone for the long-term, longer in fact than any player on the roster. "If you want to retain an elite player, youre going to probably have to give them fairly lengthy term," Nonis insisted, the David Clarkson seven-year deal this past summer another example of such requirements. "What you want to make sure of or be as comfortable as you can be that that player is going to be able to perform at a high level for most, if not all of it. And again, Phil being 26-years-old, Im pretty comfortable that weve got, hopefully, the best eight years of his career." Though he enters his eighth NHL season, Kessel remains relatively young and has demonstrated in recent years an ability to grow – both on and off the ice – and further mold an overall game that had been previously lacking. Maybe most striking, however, and most prominent in the playoffs last spring was the intensity he presented against the Bruins, a handful opposite Chara and company with four goals and six points in the seven-game series. "Its not like he hadnt done anything prior to that series, but his desire to win and to compete and do things that dont come natural to him, I think that opened a lot of peoples eyes," Nonis said. "One thing with that is he has to continue doing that and he knows it." "I think maybe some people dont think he has a ton of compete in him, but we in the room know he does," said Tyler Bozak, who remained a Leaf this past summer with a five-year deal. "He puts up those points every single year for a reason." Kessel had scored 30 goals for four consecutive seasons before tallying 20 in the shortened 48-game schedule last year. Only three players have found twine more in the past three seasons, an impressive trio that includes Corey Perry, Alex Ovechkin and Stamkos. Whether that line of production continues to ascend though will be up to the player, according to Nonis. "Its going to be where he wants it to go," Nonis stated. "If he wants to continue that compete that he showed in the postseason... if he wants to continue to work on his conditioning and his strength and his playmaking and all those things that have improved over the last three or four years, Phil should continue to improve. We shouldnt see a flat-line, he should keep getting better." Dion Phaneuf is the next contract for Nonis and his management team to work on, the Leafs captain unsigned beyond this season. Ahead in the summer of 2014 looms a daunting list that includes Jake Gardiner (RFA), James Reimer (RFA), Cody Franson (RFA), Mark Fraser (RFA), Mason Raymond (UFA), Paul Ranger (UFA), Nik Kulemin (UFA) and Dave Bolland (UFA). With Kessel now securely in the fold though, the Leafs do have a core group of forwards locked up long-term, with Clarkson, Bozak, Joffrey Lupul, and James van Riemsdyk all signed until at least the conclusion of the 2016-2017 season. Custom Philadelphia 76ers Jerseys . Ribery, who won UEFAs best player in Europe award for the 2012-13 season, helped Bayern Munich win the Champions League and Bundesliga and German Cup titles. Messi, winner of the last four Ballon dOr awards in voting by coaches, team captains and media, was injured late in the season and could not prevent Barcelona from being beaten by Bayern in the Champions League semifinals. Maurice Cheeks Jersey .ca. Hi Kerry, Thursday nights Bruins-Blackhawks game had a goal by Patrice Bergeron initially waved off by the referee, but video review clarified it was a good goal. http://www.authentic76ersauthority.com/dario-saric-76ers-jersey-c-32/ . Mike Trout, Josh Hamilton and Kole Calhoun all homered to help the Los Angeles Angels get their first win of the season with an 11-1 rout of the Houston Astros.On Tuesday, Canada Soccer unveiled its new technical development vision for soccer in Canada, entitled Canada Soccer Pathway. Your Goals. Our Game. The pathway consists of three streams of play: recreational, competitive and EXCEL (the high performance level of the game). On hand to discuss the pathway were Canada Soccer Technical Director, Tony Fonseca, womens national team head coach, John Herdman, and Canada Soccer Long-Term Player Development Manager, Sylvie Béliveau. According to Béliveau, the pathway is "built around the principles of long-term player development and encourages lifelong participation. At Canada Soccer, we believe all players deserve the best possible soccer experience, and our Canada Soccer Pathway is designed to place their needs front and centre at each and every stage." The creation of different streams in youth soccer is long overdue, and a move that is likely to be met with approval across the country. Clubs are the primary delivery agents of the recreational and competitive streams, and in the coming weeks, Canada Soccer will release a national curriculum that supports coaches working with players in the first three stages of LTPD. Canada Soccer hopes to have the curriculum for the rest of the stages ready for release by the end of the summer. The national curriculum will be a valuable resource for coaches – especially for the thousands of volunteer coaches across the country working with young players. The curriculum will contain a "Preferred Training Model" that incorporates "station work", so that clubs that are heavily reliant on volunteer coaches can maximize their resources in order to provide the best development environment possible. The preferred model allows for a four-parent collective approach to training, and frees up the volunteer parent-coach from trying to impart too much technical or tactical information in one session. There are many benefits of taking such an approach at the early stages of player development. It maximizes the availability of coaching and facility resources, it aids volunteer parent coaches by allowing them to pool their knowledge, and it places players into an environment that meets their learning needs, where shorter, diverse sessions are broken up into varying activities of different intensity. Philadelphia 76ers Jerseys. There are some questions that still need to be addressed with such an approach, though. Utilizing a "station work" approach to training requires guidance and oversight from a trained facilitator or coach educator. Do the majority of clubs across the country that are working with players between the ages of 4-12 have coach educators on staff? If not, how does Canada Soccer train coaches to be able to perform this role? Is the long-awaited "Childrens License" that has been in development finally going to be given the resources it needs to be completed? The Preferred Training Model suggests that an assessment-based coaching qualification such as this is required, so one would hope that its completion would be given top priority. More pressing questions arise when one looks further along the Canada Soccer Pathway. Given the significance of HP (high-performance) leagues in the Pathway, will Canada Soccer assume direct control of these leagues? If not, how will Canada Soccer ensure that such leagues will be open to both non-profit community clubs and for-profit private academies? If Canada Soccer is going to leave the operation of HP leagues to the respective provincial associations, how will Canada Soccer ensure that political forces do not undermine technical decisions – like the inclusion of private academies? If we are serious about creating the best possible environments for player development in Canada, then politics have no place in our technical decision-making process. Among the documents released on Tuesday was a community guide for long-term player development, as well as a womens EXCEL program guide for players and parents. Both documents provide some valuable insight into the direction of the game in Canada. Those expecting Tuesdays announcement to contain the answers for all of our developmental woes will feel very underwhelmed. Our problems run deep, and require a series of detailed, long-term solutions. While this is just the first step, it is important to remember that every long journey starts with a single step. I, for one, am hopeful that this step will take us in the right direction. Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys Wholesale NFL Jerseys Jerseys From China Wholesale NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap Jerseys ' ' '