Kakko not happy just weeks into his rookie season
It’s hard to know exactly what Kaapo Kakko was expecting of his f irst month with the Rangers, but it likely wasn’t this.
The No. 2-overall pick recently showed a little bit of frustration with the situation while speaking to a media outlet from his native Finland. While some things may have gotten lost in translation, it is still clear the 18-year-old has wanted to contribute more and was hoping for more opportunity to do so.
“Hockey isn’t very much fun for me right now,” Kakko told Eastside Media on Sunday, with the translation clarif ied by the story’s reporter, Pasi
Tuominen. “Things haven’t been working out, and sometimes I feel like I could be on the ice a bit more. It would be cool to get a chance on the f irst line at some point. I understand that it hasn’t been realistic so far, since I haven’t really showed much.”
Kakko got a season-low 9:51 of ice time on Tuesday night, when a 3-2 overtime defeat to the visiting Coyotes extended the Rangers winless streak to f ive games. Coach David Quinn said Kakko’s ice time was the result of “the flow of the game.”
But Kakko wants a bigger role, and he wants to earn it.
“My goal is to have a leading role,” Kakko told the Finnish outlet. “I don’t want to hear any talk about how I’m the youngest guy and I need to be given time to get used to the style. I want to be the guy who scores goals and wins games right away.”
There have only been sporadic shifts when Quinn has put Kakko up on the right side of that top line, with Artemi
Panarin and Mika Zibanejad. He played Tuesday with Chris Kreider and Brett Howden, sometimes getting lost in the shuffle.
He was back on the second power-play unit after briefly seeing some time on the f irst for Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Canucks. But this time he picked up a secondary assist on Tony DeAngelo’s second
period goal, giving Kakko his f irst career assist to go with his only goal that came on Oct. 12 against the Oilers.
“A player wants to play,” Kakko said. “You want to show that you can play well. After the f irst two games I was already frustrated, especially since my game wasn’t what I was expecting.”