The first clue came last week from the mouth of Martin St-Louis.
The Canadian’s head coach slipped into a response that young forward Oliver Kapanen showed the signs of a rookie who had less confidence in his abilities. It’s always a tricky situation when a rookie experiences a drop in confidence before he’s even had success he can relate to in the NHL.
The 21-year-old Finn had had a very good training camp, but as the games progressed it became increasingly difficult for him to replicate the impact he had in the camp games. training.
Rather than undermine his confidence by using him too sporadically, the Canadian decided to loan him to the Timra team, in Sweden, where Kapanen will finish the season. The second round choice of CH in 2021, 64th overall, will therefore join the team of which his father is the general manager and of which the former player of the NHL Olli Jokinen is the head coach.
It’s a successful audition
believes St-Louis about the young center who collected two assists in 12 games.
You see he is a very intelligent player. I’m happy that he had this experience, to have seen how things work on a daily basis in the National League. The speed of the game and the execution, I think, are things that he can take with him and go and apply them to a place where he’s going to get a lot more minutes.
After being left out of the opening game, Kapanen appeared in the next 12 games – sometimes at center, sometimes on the wing – but he only crossed the 13-minute mark on three occasions.
If he was not able to make enough of an impact on offense to secure his place in the top 9, entrusting residual fourth-line usage to another player profile was the right thing to do from a long-term perspective. .
Defenseman David Savard, who says he really liked what he saw in Kapanen’s game, believes it was wise to remove him from the traffic jam in which he was stuck.
I think he’s a guy who’s capable of creating plays offensively, who’s also capable of winning faceoffs and being responsible defensively, so I think that bodes well for him
Savard first said.
I think it’s probably the best decision in the sense that he’s going to play a lot and have a lot of space there. He’s still a young player and I think that here there was like a clock log for him.
He showed some great things, but I think that gaining a lot of confidence there, going to perform and playing a lot of minutes, that will help him come back next year and be extremely solid for us.
The Canadian encouraged Kapanen to gain physical strength, which is a fairly conventional message among young players. For the rest, the variety of his tools suggests that once developed, Kapanen will be able to provide valuable services to the team.
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Condotta’s recall, a clue about Dach?
In the short term, it was Rocket captain Lucas Condotta who was recalled from Laval to take Kapanen’s place. The Canadian needed a center player for his fourth line, which explains why Condotta was preferred to a more productive winger than him, like Joshua Roy for example.
The Canadian therefore has a center player and a 13th attacker in the winger position (Michael Pezzetta) with whom St-Louis can juggle depending on its preference to use Kirby Dach at center or on the wing.
The team hasn’t cast anything in stone in this regard, but the coach maintained a gray area on Tuesday regarding the position that Dach will occupy in the future.
It’s still too early to tell, St-Louis said. If you had asked me that 12 or 13 months ago, I would have said it’s a center. But we won’t really know until Dach has fully regained his game.
During Tuesday’s game against the Calgary Flames, Dach was clearly the best player on his line. If it was difficult at times for Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield tied in numbers, Dach stood out with greater confidence in possession of the puck. In the third period, for example, good back pressure in the neutral zone allowed him to steal the disc from an opponent and restart the attack. Dach passed to Kaiden Guhle at the top of the slot, but even though the latter had good space to shoot, his shot missed the net.
He made some very nice 1-on-1 moves while diving toward the net, Suzuki noted. This is what we are used to seeing from him. I think he’s starting to find his legs, he’s skating well and we need good plays.
The recall of Condotta suggests that the CH intends to continue for the moment with Dach on the wing, but we must not forget that winger Rafaël Harvey-Pinard is approaching a return to play and that his possible return could lead move a few pieces. The Quebecer trained again with a non-contact jersey on Wednesday, but it would not be far-fetched to imagine his return to play within two weeks.
The Habs (4-7-2) begin a four-game road trip Thursday with a matchup against the powerful New Jersey Devils. This will be followed by stops in Toronto on Saturday, in Buffalo next Monday, and finally in Minnesota the following Thursday.
