5-on-5: Oliver Kapanen has as many points as Nick Suzuki this season

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5-on-5: Oliver Kapanen has as many points as Nick Suzuki this season
Credit: Getty Images

Oliver Kapanen is doing an excellent job for the Habs this season. The rookie, who found himself at Ivan Demidov's center somewhat by default, is really making himself indispensable to Montreal.

We're talking about a 22-year-old rookie who has 10 goals and 16 points in 34 games, all while making a significant contribution on the power play.

What's interesting is that Kapanen has solid offensive production despite the fact that he doesn't play on the power play. This means that most of his offensive production comes from 5-on-5 situations (and the rest when his club is short-handed).

And to illustrate just how solid Kapanen is in 5-on-5 situations, we can compare him to his peers around town… and what we notice is that his 14 points in that situation tie him with one other player.

We're talking about the captain, Nick Suzuki.

(Credit: MoneyPuck)

Lane Hutson (18 points) leads the charge, followed by a line of players (Noah Dobson, Ivan Demidov, and Cole Caufield) with 15 points at 5-on-5. So when you look at it, there are really few players who are as good as Kapanen at 5-on-5 this season.

Especially since, apart from Demidov, the other players have all played far more minutes than Kapanen in this situation.

It's worth remembering that Kapanen is actually scoring goals at a pretty unsustainable rate at the moment. It's a bit like the opposite of Suzuki, so you'd think it would all come together over a larger time sample.

But as we approach the halfway point of the season, the numbers clearly show that Kapanen is an important offensive engine in town. And that's why the idea of trading him for Phillip Danault wouldn't make much sense…


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