RALEIGH, N.C. — Kasperi Kapanen has scored an untold number of goals in the building now known as PNC Arena.
It’s just that until Wednesday night, when the flying Finn made his first working visit with the Toronto Maple Leafs, they’d all been scored with a mini-stick outside the wives’ room. The son of Sami was flooded with memories in his first visit back here in 16 years — the first since his dad was traded to Philadelphia during the 2002-03 season — and he made one more by ripping a shot past Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Curtis McElhinney in the third period.
“Obviously it’s cool. But the team didn’t win today so it didn’t feel as special,” Kapanen said after a 5-2 loss. “You kind of recognize some signs out there and some rows and the section where we used to sit with my Mom for a long time.”
Kapanen has come a long way — and that’s just in the seven weeks since he started receiving top-six minutes as an NHLer. They arrived as a gift when William Nylander was unable to work out an extension with Leafs management before the season, but he’s made good use of his good fortune.
The Leafs spent the last three seasons grooming Kapanen to fill a meat-and-potatoes role. He started killing penalties in the American Hockey League and almost exclusively got strapped to the fourth line during his cameos with the big club.
With the Nylander negotiations being stretched to the limit, his outlook has changed dramatically. Kapanen has nine goals in 22 games — third on the Leafs behind John Tavares (14) and Auston Matthews (10) — and he’s produced 3.6 shots per game.
He’s an offensive threat.
“In the American League he didn’t look this good, he just didn’t. You know I saw him lots,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said this week. “He’s obviously got a skill set of speed, he can shoot the puck, he’s a much bigger guy. He’s worked on his body over a three-year period and I don’t think he got to the NHL too soon. When you get to the NHL too soon you don’t score.
“I think it’s a real good thing that he took his time getting here, and we helped him take his time getting here, and now he’s an important player for us.”
This has been a process. Sami Kapanen once explained to me that it was tough for his son to keep getting returned to the AHL because he grew up with Nylander and Patrik Laine and Mikko Rantanen and saw those guys filling big roles in the NHL.
He felt like he was falling behind.
To his credit, Kapanen continued pushing and he was ready to be a difference-maker when the organization needed him. He’s averaging 16 minutes per game — five more than he saw in the NHL last year — and it’s hard to imagine him falling any lower than the third line even if Nylander returns soon.
When asked what’s made the biggest difference, he said: “I think once you get a little more ice time and you’ve got more opportunities and you get the chance to shoot the puck a little more. I guess just the ice time, to be honest. Or maybe it’s just been clicking for me this year. I don’t know. I think since Game 1 I’ve been performing pretty well and I feel like I can be a lot better still. I just have to keep going.”
His speed is his most obvious asset. In Wednesday’s game, he used that to gain separation down the right wing before beating McElhinney to get the score back to 3-2. It put Toronto in position to push for overtime — at least until the Hurricanes put two pucks in an empty net to kill the rally.
Kapanen is playing with a level of confidence he hasn’t felt in a long time. It’s evident to everyone around him.
“I just knew Kappy from a distance and his game playing against him,” said Tavares. “You see the confidence and seeing how deadly or how effective his tools are — his shot, his skating ability — the confidence that’s growing in that and the impact he can make and how hard he can be to defend.”
Here in Carolina they remember him as the fair-haired little kid who used to bomb around the hallways and Hurricanes dressing room. Kapanen spent his first six years in Raleigh and took his first skating strides in this building.
“Oh yeah, oh yeah. He used to run around here,” said Rod Brind’Amour, the Hurricanes coach and a former teammate of Sami Kapanen. “He was out here with his dad in the good old days when we used to have a lot of little kids running around. It makes you feel old, that’s for sure.”
Kapanen is carrying on the family business.
About the only thing Brind’Amour figures he can’t do better than his dad is skate. Sami Kapanen won the fastest skater competition at the NHL all-star game and, in Brind’Amour’s estimation, remains second-to-none in that department.
But we are still learning about the limits of Kasperi’s abilities and he’s not yet ready to concede the family speed title.
“Me and my Dad have talked about it, we’ve been joking around about it,” said Kapanen. “I think if we skated from goal line to goal line, he says that I’d be faster there. But if we’re skating around the rink, he’s got smaller legs and quicker legs, so I think he’d be faster in the corners.”
[relatedlinks]
