Oliver Kapanen started his SHL career a bit sluggish as he adapted from his time in NHL with the Montreal Canadines. This led to a break up of what was supposed to be one of the top lines, if not the top line, in SHL this season: Filip Hållander, Kapanen, and Jonathan Dahlén. As the team sheets arrive, the line is back together and it will be interesting to see if they can find the chemistry we all expected them to have at the start of the season. Hållander and Dahlén are the top two scorers on the Timrå this season.
After having watched Timrå’s top line for 20 minutes, I am reminded of Kapanen’s line last year. There are quite a few similarities: Kapanen plays centre in the defensive zone, but defers to the other players on the offensive side of the game. He often takes the position at the offensive blue line wall to help out with zone entries, and when the play is in the offensive zone Kapanen goes hard to the net and looking for quick shots or rebounds letting the others run the possession game and drive play.
Kapanen had two goals in the game, one of the goals being shot from close, the other a breakaway to clinch the game. Timrå relies on his faceoffs, especially in the defensive end, and Kapanen is never out of position. The same is true on the special teams. On the penalty kill, he wasn’t in the wrong position once. Timrå didn’t get a power play in the game, but past viewings show that Kapanen is the net-front presence with the advantage.
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Naturally, Kapanen was in high spirits after the game when he met up with me, starting off with a laugh and “I knew you’d be here today.”
It was something that made the interview a bit more informal than normal, an example is when he described his breakaway goal as “I panicked and I tried to do something, it went in.”
One reader pointed out to me that Kapanen sometimes switches sides in the face off circle, using a backhand draw sometimes and forward draw other times. There seems to be no pattern with it and Kapanen explains it as “it’s usually on my weak side, the left side, more often in the defensive zone. I saw an [opposing player do it]. I like to do it, it’s working, I am pretty good at it. When I first saw it in Liiga last season I was like ‘what is that kid doing.’ It was pretty shocking, outside thinking, it’s a good way though.”
After arriving from the Canadiens, a lot has happened, Kapanen is scoring at a pace not really seen from him before. At the moment he has 25 (12G-13A) points in 26 games. He is close to a point-per-game player in a league that isn’t known for its scoring and especially with a lot of the points coming at five-on-five play.
Kapanen was honest as he explained what has changed.
“Just the overall game,” he said. “The start was pretty hard and I was struggling a little bit with my own game. Now I am getting used to it and structural wise I know what to do, and if I am not feeling at 100%, I can just focus on the strategy of things and that is a safety net. The legs are starting to feel good and finding chemistry with my line-mates.”
When asked about the similarity between the lines of last year and this year Kapanen answers “It’s a big part of today’s hockey. I say that if you are not the first in the zone someone else has to do that job. I think it’s really good that we can trust each other to do that, I feel so much confident doing that.”
When I speak with Timrå’s coach Olli Jokinen after the game he praises his young player.
“He’s been our key guy since he came back and so I’m not surprised. I think as a coach the expectations are higher and higher all the time and he’s a good kid. He’s willing to learn. He puts the work in, extra practices, works on his faceoffs. The offensive skill is there, the shot is there.
“We continue to want him to be better without the puck, hard player to play against because for a young player when he goes to NHL that’s the role he is going have. You need to be a reliable player. When you go to the NHL you either have to be a big time scorer as in a first-round pick, and your rope is a little bit longer, but if you’re a player like Oliver that wasn’t a first-round pick… Coaches like that 200 foot game, that you can play both ends and you can play with the puck, but you can also defend and he’s been taking good steps this year.”
It is clear that Jokinen loves hockey, not just as a player but as a coach and as scholar.
“He has good company and Hållander is an unbelievable player,” Jokinen continued. “He’s definitely playing in the wrong league right now. He’s been to the NHL but to me he’s the best player in this league, not just on our team, but on the whole league, and he’s definitely been an MVP for us.”
What does Kapanen learn from playing with Hållander and Dahlén?
“All of them learn from each other. They all all have different qualities. I think with Hållander as an example it’s his heavy stick, good with the for check, good without the puck, but then at the same time, Oliver is kind of trying to do the same things, obviously a little bit of different role. That being in the centre, but then at the same time both of them can be down low as one helping to be out. Dahlén is obviously the huge offensive side of things. We have certain requirements without the puck and he’s been really buying in and improving. I think they have that good inner competition in the extra practices. They’re competing against each other; who scores more goals? When we do the individual training they have high standards, so they keep demanding more from each other.”
Kapanen’s offensive production is also a standout for his coach.
“It’s very impressive actually because this is a tough league. To get points because there’s no specialty teams whatsoever in this league. Today, there was only one penalty and that was too many men on the ice, and I found four or five penalties for both teams easily. The games are kind of low scoring games so there’s a lot of five on five, bigger ice surface, the Olympic size rinks. It’s not like in [the] NHL where you get a wide entry from the blue line and you get one step in the middle, you’re in a good scoring chance over here you’re too far off to score so it’s impressive.”
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The one question is if Kapanen can play centre in the NHL, and that question still lingers in my mind. Defensively I can see it, offensively I am having trouble seeing it. The few scouts that I have spoken with say the same thing and think the future in the NHL is probably on the wing for Kapanen.
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You can hear my comments and reflections from during the game and then the full interviews with Oliver Kapanen (starts at around 7:30) and Olli Jokinen in the podcast below:
