Kapanen familiar with magic Carter can bring
Kasperi Kapanen can still remember being a kid on Christmas when Santa Claus arrived.
Red suit. White beard. Big belly. Eh, actually not really a belly at all. To be honest, actually pretty skinny for a guy who eats all those cookies. And is that a hockey bag filled with toys?
Only years later did Kapanen find out that Old Saint Nick was actually a very young Jeff Carter.
“I didn’t recognize him,” Kapanen, now 24, said. “All I know, my mom or somebody told me a little while ago.”
This week, the man who played Santa Claus at the Kapanen family
Christmas came to a new town, when the Penguins acquired Carter in exchange for a pair of mid-round picks.
From a hockey standpoint, the trade is meant to bolster the Penguins’ forward corps. As a 16-year veteran with more than 1,000
games played and 750-plus points, Carter adds versatility to the roster and yet another respected veteran with his name on the Cup to a dressing room full of leadership.
“I’m excited to be here,” Carter said. “You look at this team and they’re right in the mix. They have as good a shot as anybody to compete this year.”
The trade also created a coincidental reunion.
Carter, a first- round pick in the 2011 draft, joined the Philadelphia Flyers as a 20- year- old rookie for the 2005-06 season. At the same time, Kapanen’s father, Sami, was closing out the back stretch of his NHL career in Philadelphia.
Sami raised his son the same way his father, Hannu, did as a pro in Finland. That is to say Kasperi, who was about nine or 10 at the time, was an ever- present fixture around the rink.
“I was trying to go on the ice as much as I could with them,” Kapanen said. “Just play around. I’d be in the gym. Just being a little kid just try to piss them off a little bit.”
While everyone accepted Kasperi in the dressing room, two young centers, Carter and Mike Richards, really seemed to take the youngster under their wing. How did they tolerate that joking?
“Him being a younger guy, he was probably the one telling me to do it,” Kapanen said, with a laugh. “He tried to get me to go up to older guys and mess around with them.
“They were all really nice to me, which was something looking back on I really appreciate. It’s a dream come true to hang around NHL players. I think they did a really good job with me, letting me feel like one of the guys.”
They shared plenty of laughs, and a few Christmases, together in Philadelphia. On game nights, Carter was one of the players Kapanen watched closely from the stands.
“The way he played in Philadelphia, I loved everything about it,” Kapanen said. “I thought he was a tremendous hockey player.”
Following the 2007-08 season, their paths split. Sami Kapapen retired from the NHL and took his family back to his native Finland. There, the young Kasperi would eventually blossom into a first-round draft pick with some of his father’s signature speed.
Carter, meanwhile, was traded twice – first to Columbus and later to Los Angeles. With the Kings, he posted a 46-goals season, earned votes for the Hart Trophy and won two Stanley Cups.
“Playing against L.A., I’d run into him,” Kapanen
said. “I might give him a little smile.”
This week, Carter was reunited with plenty of people who he’s met in his hockey journey. He caught up with Ron Hextall, who was the assistant general manager that helped build the 2012 and 2014 Kings teams that won the Stanley Cup. He joked with Sidney Crosby about all those battles they had when Carter was on the Flyers and the good memories they made playing for Team Canada. Carter and Trevor Daley played some junior hockey together.
But, technically, the connection with Kapanen predates all of that.
“For him to get traded here and get to meet him again, it’s kind of funny to see him for the first time,” Kapanen said. “He was talking about the last time I saw him, I was about knee high.”
In some ways, this hockey story has come full circle.
All those years ago, Carter was the young, 20something year old forward just beginning to make a name for himself in the NHL. And Sami Kapanen was the veteran who reinvented himself as a tenacious two-way forward, while looking out for the younger players.
Now, Carter said he took on more of a “mentorship role” with the Kings, something that may continue in Pittsburgh. He’s the 36- year- old veteran hoping to add one more Cup to his resume. And Kasperi is the 24-year-old just three full NHL seasons into his journey.
“It’s the way the world works,” Kapanen said. “You’re the young guy once and then you get older. Eventually I’ll be in his shoes and maybe I’ll run into someone. It’s kind of funny to look at it like that.”
Who knows. With the pandemic reshaping the NHL schedule and the Stanley Cup not scheduled to be awarded until late in the summer, maybe these two can team up to bring a different gift back to Pittsburgh and make the playoffs feel like Christmas in July.