A job that had the potential to be the worst in all of hockey — making ready Kasperi Kapanen’s case for his wage arbitration listening to with the Pittsburgh Penguins — turned pointless Thursday.
That listening to, which had been scheduled for July 30, turned moot when Kapanen and the group agreed to a two-year deal that carries a $3.2 million salary-cap hit, the identical because the contract that just lately expired.
And whereas it is uncommon for a comparatively outstanding participant nearing the prime of his profession to conform to a contract that does not embrace a wage enhance, Kapanen ought to really feel fortunate to interrupt even on this one.
Contemplating how he produced – or, extra to the purpose, did not produce – in 2021-22, he ought to in all probability ship his agent, Markus Lehto, a thanks notice for squeezing a lot out of Rum Hextallwho had confirmed fairly frugal in different negotiations (within the context of the inflated offers which might be the norm in skilled sports activities, after all).
Frankly, after seeing Kapanen, who was projected as a top-six winger and was seen by many as a possible 30-goal participant, scored simply 11 targets and 21 assists in 79 video games final season, the most secure transfer for Hextall. can be I’ve to let Kapanen look elsewhere for a wage.
Merely refusing to increase him a qualifying supply, which might enable Kapanen to change into an unrestricted free agent and transfer on from what Hextall might fairly have described as a misguided acquisition by his predecessor, Jim Rutherford.
Take the cash the Penguins saved by slicing ties with Kapanen and put it towards new offers with a few of their different gamers who wanted a contract: Danton Heinen, any? – or nab somebody on the free agent market. It is protected to imagine that, oh, selecting a troublesome winger for the fourth lane would have been nicely acquired by many of the fanbase.
However Hextall, whose work this offseason has dispelled any doubts about his willingness to make daring strikesas an alternative, he selected to take one other threat: that Kapanen might, and can, change into the participant the Pittsburgh Penguins believed he may very well be after they chosen him in Spherical 1 of the 2014 NHL Draft, and that Rutherford felt he might. make a distinction when he introduced it in from Toronto two summers in the past.
Hextall has discovered that Kapanen is a wonderful skater who can spot, and exploit, holes within the opposing protection, and has a simple set off launch on what generally is a deadly shot.
In fact, he has additionally witnessed Kapanen disappear for such extended intervals that there have been suspicions that he had traded in his quantity 42 sweater for an invisibility cloak.
Hextall is clearly keen to guess that Kapanen can nonetheless change into a helpful piece of the Penguins’ personnel puzzle, that he can group with Jeff Carter to make the third line a constantly productive unit.
And maybe Hextall had an much more radical imaginative and prescient, maybe the product of a fever dream? — that, say, Kapanen can be so productive that the Penguins might transfer him to the No. 2 line, push Rickard Rakell from proper to left in that unit and commerce Jason Zucker to open up cap house.
That is not essentially a disaster proper now — shedding the $1.3 million or in order that’s over the exhausting cap now should not be too exhausting to treatment — however there’s nothing unsuitable with having slightly room to spare.
Anticipating Kapanen to carry out on the degree that may make any of that practical in all probability is not clever, and there isn’t any indication the Pittsburgh Penguins are relying on Kapanen for greater than an inexpensive return on their newest funding in him. .
Even that may be a really welcome change.
Particularly for anybody who has to arrange the Kapanen case for its subsequent arbitration listening to.
