‘Might be my last chance’: Castaway Kasperi Kapanen finds stride at perfect time

EDMONTON — Zip back to the spring of 2018.

Kasperi Kapanen is only 21 years old. He’s a recent AHL callup for the Toronto Maple Leafs making a swift impact. 

Yet despite the fact his home country turned his world junior gold goal into a postage stamp and his pedigree as a first-round pick, he feels like the hockey world is sleeping on him.

“I don’t think teams really know what I’m capable of,” Kapanen said one night, after one of his bursts resulted in a breakaway goal. “That’s why I try to use my speed and surprise them.”

Flash forward seven springs, and Kapanen — the son of a fleet NHLer (dad Sami) and a track-and-field star (mom Petra) — is still catching the NHL off guard.

Only this time it’s on the grandest stage, for the team closest to hoisting the Stanley Cup — the trophy that eluded Sami’s Carolina Hurricanes in the 2002 final.

Sure, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl linked for Game 1’s overtime magic. But of all the Edmonton Oilers’ deep supporting cast, it was the wild-haired, fierce-checking Kapanen who made the greatest stamp on the game.

“Who is this Kasperi Kapanen, and what has he done with Kasperi Kapanen?” tweeted Kelsey Surmacz, who covers the Penguins for The Hockey News.

Not only did Kapanen register two assists, five hits, and a plus-2 rating in 20-plus minutes of work Wednesday, he darn near froze the clock himself when he slithered right through two praying mantises, Niko Mikkola and Seth Jones, and pinged a post on a McDavid-esque fourth-period solo rush.

“Looked like Davo,” Stuart Skinner observed from the jet stream, 200 feet south.

“That would have been a pretty special goal for Kap if he had put that breakaway in,” McDavid said. “A beautiful rush.”

Took a minute, but we are just finding out now what Kapanen is capable of.

Moreover, Kapanen himself is discovering what he can do when staring at the cold possibility of his final NHL stop. Guys who get waived twice in two years aren’t guaranteed a third chance.

“I’ve bounced around,” Kapanen, now 28, told reporters post-game, “and there’s no point in getting into the why it wasn’t working out… but I knew that potentially this might be my last chance, and I’m grateful they gave me the opportunity.”

In Toronto, the word inside and outside the organization was that Kapanen’s dedication to his craft fell short of his overflowing quiver of skills. He dropped from a 20-goal man in 2018-19 to a 13-goal man in 2019-20 and was benched for “internal accountability” a few months before getting dealt to Pittsburgh for a first-round pick.

Critics wondered if he was taking the NHL dream for granted.

The salary-shedding trade was viewed as a clear win in Leafland.

Even more so after the Penguins waived Kapanen in 2023, when he was picked up by the St. Louis Blues — a team for which he’d never contribute more than eight goals in a season.

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But the Oilers were keeping an eye.

Head coach Kris Knoblauch reveals that Edmonton was interested in signing Kapanen as a free agent on July 1, before he re-upped with the Blues for $1 million. 

“We liked how he played: speed, tenacity, can play with skill players,” Knoblauch says. “Just never had really a good fit.”

Much like fellow fringe forward Jeff Skinner, Kapanen’s inconsistency hindered his ability to solidify a regular lineup spot in the regular season. Then he sat on the sidelines for the entire first round.

“We always wanted more from him,” Knoblauch says. “Since we inserted him back in the lineup in that Vegas series, he’s been playing exactly what we needed. He’s been making plays, scoring goals.

“We’ve had him on the ice in the last minute of games. He’s been making some big hits. He’s been doing everything. He’s got all the tools.”

Kapanen made his coach look like a genius when he scored the series-clincher in Round 2 and hasn’t looked back since. He has five points in eight games, earned a promotion to the top six, chipped in on the PK.

The Oilers are outscoring their opponents 7-2 when Kapanen’s blades hit the ice this post-season.

What has this desperate, confident Finn of Kapanen injected since he entered the chat? 

“A lot. He seems to be a player you can plug into any spot. Kills penalties when you need him to. His speed creates a lot of confusion for opposition. When he’s confident and playing the way he has been, he’s really tough to handle,” Leon Draisaitl says. 

“We took a chance on him, and it’s paid off big time for us.”

Sami Kapanen’s Hurricanes only mustered one win in their ’02 final against a Detroit Red Wings squad loaded with Hall of Famers: Nicklas Lidstrom, Chris Chelios, Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Igor Larionov, Brendan Shanahan, Sergei Fedorov, Pavel Datsyuk, Dominik Hasek and Luc Robitaille.

One more win, and Kasperi will already have gone farther than his father.

“Watching my dad and knowing how hard it is,” Kasperi said. “Detroit had a pretty good team back then. I don’t blame them for losing. 

“It was a dream for him, and it’s a dream for me. I can talk to you for 10 minutes about it. I’m just overwhelmed.”

For all the frustration and uncertainty, the rumours and dismissals that marked Kapanen’s journey to this point, this city, this opportunity, today the player is preaching pure appreciation.

“These are the best days of my life right now, just coming to the rink and playing these games,” said Kapanen, wearing his emotions on his sleeve.

“Listen, my blood pressure is really high, and it is nerve-wracking. But I’m just enjoying this. I mean, everybody is nervous at this time. Playoff hockey is the best,” he continued.

 “This is what you dream of as a little kid, to be right here. I’m cherishing every moment.”

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