The Edmonton Oilers decided to make a rare waiver claim on St. Louis Blues forward Kasperi Kapanen yesterday, but where will he fit on the current roster?
Oilers GM Stan Bowman is clearly not thrilled with the lack of production and speed being shown by his bottom six at the moment. As it stands, Connor Brown and Corey Perry are the only regular players on the third and fourth lines with more than two goals. Further to that, Brown is also the youngest player in that group at the age of 30.
That group needed an injection of both youth and speed to help them keep up with other teams. It seems as though the Oilers thought a 28-year-old Kapanen could help that along. So, where in that group should Oilers fans expect the Finnish player to slot into?
#Oilers seeing their middle six lag behind the competition and add Kapanen to try help that.
He’s struggled to score consistently, but it’s an interesting bet. Could see him slotting in in the third line potentially
— Preston Hodgkinson (@NHLHodgkinson) November 19, 2024
In St. Louis, Kapanen struggled to stay in the lineup and was used primarily in a bottom-six role. The underlying numbers were ugly, with a horrid 12.5 goals-for percentage (GF%) throughout the 10 games he appeared in.
A natural right-winger, it’s likely that his competition will be with Brown and Perry on most nights. Considering his struggles this season, it’s hard to believe that he will immediately usurp either of those players right away.
If he has a chance, however, it would be in Perry’s fourth-line spot. For one, Brown has generally looked like the faster player and has the distinction of being one of the team’s primary penalty-killers. Perry, while good this season for what he brings, is also one of the slowest skaters on the team, and it’s clear that, at the age of 39, playing him for all 82 games in a season is not a winning strategy.
Kapanen should be able to jump in and out of the lineup fairly easily with this team and provide some much-needed speed. His scoring touch has not been there this season, scoring just a single goal with the Blues this season, but if the Oilers continue to run an 11/7 formation, that would mean an occasional shift with one of Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl.
The Finn also gives Edmonton another option on the PK, as he has about 89 minutes doing so dating back to last season, which is a lot more than Perry.
Kapanen is not going to magically solve all the scoring problems on this team and there is a good chance this experiment doesn’t result in much. One thing it will do is provide Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch the ability to move guys around at the bottom of the forward group.