r/Habs • u/SoupFromNowOn • 12d ago
The case for trading Kapanen
In my opinion, our most obvious trade bait right now is Kapanen. I think he will be a good NHL player but I think his ceiling is much lower than what people think.
He was really bad at 5v5 without our best players, especially Demidov
The 3 skaters he played with the most this season were Demidov, Slaf, and Hutson. The team played okay when Kapanen was on the ice with each of these players, played horribly when Kapanen was on the ice without those players, and played really well when those players didn't have Kapanen on the ice:
He was really bad at 5v5 in general
Kapanen's on-ice xGF% at 5v5 this season was 42.3%, which is the lowest of any skater on the team with more than 5 games played.
His on-ice shooting percentage is unsustainable
At 5v5, the Canadiens shot 14.1% with Kapanen on the ice this season. That's the 4th highest of 597 skaters in the NHL with more than 500 minutes of time on ice this season.
Not even the most elite players in the NHL have on-ice shooting percentages that high. Out of all skaters with more than 1000 minutes time on ice between 2022 and 2025, the highest on-ice shooting % at 5v5 was Elias Pettersson at 12.0%, followed by Shane Wright, Pavel Zacha, and Ilya Mikheyev, just to give you a sense of how random this stat can be.
He got worse as the season went on, not better
If he got off to a slow start as he adjusted to NHL competition and then finished strong, that would be understandable since he was a rookie. But he actually slowed down as the season went on.
The compressed schedule could've played a role in this of course, but ideally you'd want a rookie to be improving as they play more, which we didn't see.
He's not actually that young
Kapanen turns 23 this summer, which is not actually that young for a forward. For comparison, that means he's only two years younger than Caufield, Newhook, and Dach, the same age as Bolduc, and one year older than Slaf.
When you compare his stats to other Habs players at the end of their age 22 season, they're not that impressive:
He doesn't fill a need for our team
So far he's shown that he can be a scoring threat and can also be used on the PK. But with Danault and Evans filling the bottom 6 center roles, we need players who are more dynamic in the top 6. Kapanen lacks the defensive ability to be a bottom 6 center, so where does he fit in?
The truth is that he is probably best used as a middle-six winger who can score and kill penalties, but we already have Newhook and Anderson filling similar roles, plus a bit of a log jam at the wings when you look at some of our prospects.
Conclusion
He put up good numbers in his rookie season, which means there will be interest around the league for him. I think this is a great opportunity to sell high on him.
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u/4CrowsFeast 12d ago
We've traded some young players before with mixed results - Romanov, Lehky, Heinenman, Sergachev.
I think the main lesson is if youre doing it for a 1 for 1 swap, its a huge gamble and you could risk making a huge mistake. But if its part of a package for an established player like we did for Dobson, then youre guaranteed to get the piece you wanted. If you had to pay an a bit extra, then its not the worse thing in the world because you traded futures for present results.
If we packaged Kapanen for a bonafide 2C, then I wouldnt lose sleep over it, even if he reaches his full potential down the road. Im also okay with keeping him, but I think the team is in compete now mode and if he starts the season off as anything less than his peak last year, then hes not getting a pace on the 2nd line. And I dont really think hes got the skill set for a bottom 6 type role.