Kapanen’s arrival comes with lofty expectations

To count down the days until Penguins training camp, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette beat writers Matt Vensel and Mike DeFabo will dive into a new hockey topic each weekday until the first puck rattles the Plexiglass at PPG Paints Arena. Today we will discuss what the Kasperi Kapanen trade means for the top six, how Bryan Rust will follow up his career year and the rest of the right wingers.

It’s not hard to understand the thought process behind the Kasperi Kapanen trade.

Rather than spending a first-round pick on an 18-yearold prospect who might not reach the NHL until the Penguins’ championship window is firmly sealed shut, general manager Jim Rutherford chose to fast-track that process. He gave up the Penguins’

2020 first-round pick and forward prospect Filip Hallander in exchange for Kapanen who was, coincidentally, Rutherford’s first draft pick as Penguins GM in the first round of 2014.

Trading a high draft pick for a 24-year-old player is the kind of play an organization in win-now mode should be making. The question is, was this the right player?

In a lot of ways, there are reasons to believe Kapanen could be in line for a career year. He’s young, extremely fast, right-handed and a good penalty killer. His style of play — especially that speed — should fit seamlessly with coach Mike Sullivan’s system.

The Penguins plan to give Kapanen every chance to prove himself. He’s slated to start training camp in the top six, likely skating alongside Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel on the top line. With this role comes both opportunity and expectation.

If Kapanen could score 20 goals two years ago in Toronto’s bottom six, it stands to reason that he should enjoy a boost while playing next to one of the game’s alltime greats in Crosby and a 40-goal scorer like Guentzel. However, Kapanen did have some opportunities to play in Toronto’s top six alongside other ultra-talented centers like Auston Matthews and John Tavares but slid down into a middle-six role. During last year’s pandemic-shortened season, Kapanen went through what he termed a bit of a “sophomore slump.” He recorded a solid 36 points but was missing some of the scoring touch with 13 goals and 23 assists.

Shipping Kapanen to Toronto brought Phil Kessel, two Stanley Cups and a Hall of Fame enshrinement to Rutherford. Now, bringing Kapanen back will play a key role in how this next part of Rutherford’s tenure in Pittsburgh is ultimately viewed.

The Rust encore?

On a team that featured at least two Hall of Fame centers (Crosby and Malkin) and an All-Star winger (Guentzel), it was Rust who led the team in scoring.

The 27-year-old right winger missed about the first month of the season after injuring his hand blocking a shot in the final preseason game. When he returned, Rust paced the Penguins with 27 goals in 55 games. He would have had a shot at a 30-goal season had play not been suspended with 13 games remaining.

It appears Rust will start the season on the right wing with Malkin at center and Jason Zucker at left wing. While that trio got mostly stonewalled by Carey Price in the qualifying round against Montreal, their advanced stats and the way they bombarded Price in the first period of Game 1 show some signs that this could be a potent line. In the fourgame series, they controlled 67.86 percent of the expected goals and 62.50% of highdanger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. When the Penguins aren’t playing a goalie who is consistently recognized as one of the game’s best, more pucks should find the back of the net.

At the same time, Rust’s finishing ability was by far the best of his career during the regular season. He scored on 17.9% of his shot attempts, significantly better than his career average of 12.4% and better than any other Penguins regular last year. Maybe with two talented linemates, Rust can continue on the same trajectory as last year. Or maybe those shooting stats aren’t sustainable and he’ll regress toward the mean.

Either way, the Penguins will be counting on him to bring speed, tenacious forechecking and penalty killing to the top of their roster.

Role for Rodrigues?

In a word, Evan Rodrigues’ 2019 season was a whirlwind.

He won $2 million at arbitration during the 2019 summer with the expectation the Buffalo Sabres would use him as the thirdline center. However, he fell out of favor with coach Ralph Krueger and was scratched 24 times. Rodrigues reportedly requested a trade and got one when the Penguins acquired him on deadline day.

The Penguins played Rodrigues off and on before shipping him to Toronto in the Kapanen trade. The plot twist came when Toronto failed to qualify Rodrigues as a restricted free agent. He signed back with the Penguins in the offseason on a bargain one-year, $700,000 deal.

Got all that? Yeah, a whirlwind.

There were times when Rodrigues looked like the most-noticeable Penguin during his brief stint in Pittsburgh. Against the Hurricanes in the penultimate game before the pause, he drew three penalties and with the score tied in the second period, he hit the post on a breakaway. However, he was also a healthy scratch for all four of the playoff games. Even when the Penguins made changes to a broken third line, they opted for thenrookie Sam Lafferty over Rodrigues.

This year, Rodrigues will start the season on a new-look “third” line that features Jared McCann at left wing and newly acquired center Mark Jankowski in the middle. But because of his speed and versatility, expect Rodrigues to be one of the puzzle pieces that slots in all over the lineup as the season unfolds.

The Aston-Reese vacancy

When the Penguins signed Brandon Tanev during the 2019 offseason, the move was initially met with criticism. A six-year deal with a $3.5 million average annual value for a player who might never crack the top six?

However, during his first season in Pittsburgh, the pesky winger proved to be well-worth the investment, providing the sandpaper on a team filled with skill. He ranked near the top of the league in many of the most-painful stats. He was fourth in the league in hits dished out with 244, second among forwards in hits absorbed with 171 and 10th among forwards in blocked shots with 65.

When everyone is healthy, he’ll most likely fill a similar role to last season, when he was the right winger on the tight-checking Teddy Blueger line. However, with the left winger on that line, Zach Aston-Reese, still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, Tanev could flip over to his natural left side.

That would open the door for a position battle on the right. The next righties on the depth chart are Colton Sceviour and Lafferty. Sceviour will be looking to show he was more than a throw-in as a part of the Patric Hornqvist/ Mike Matheson trade, while Lafferty will try to prove he’s ready in Year 2 for a regular role.