Official: Oliver Kapanen will go to the Olympics

Charles-Alexis Brisebois
Official: Oliver Kapanen will go to the Olympics
Credit: X / the Canadiens

This morning, the USA and Finland announced their Olympic rosters for the men's hockey tournament.

The Americans chose to leave Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson at home, which was expected— but not a good decision.

The Finns, on the other hand, opted for Oliver Kapanen.

If I'd told you six months ago that a Habs player would be representing Finland at the Games, you'd obviously have thought of Oliver Kapanen long before Patrik Laine, wouldn't you?

Well, so would I. It goes without saying. #Hehe

Joel Armia, Artturi Lehkonen, and Sebastian Aho are the Canadiens alumni (yes, I'm counting Aho because it makes my day this morning) who will represent Finland with Kapanen.

Of the lot, only Armia played with Kapanen in the NHL.

Obviously, the injury to Aleksander Barkov (who is among the crème de la crème of Finnish hockey) has opened the door to seeing the Canadiens' rookie at the Olympics.

Kapanen won't have to put any pressure on himself to replace the Panthers' captain, since that's by committee. But hey: on the roster, it's Kapanen who takes his place.

The experience that Kapanen, who is having a great NHL rookie season, will gain with his national team will be really important for the future.

Just yesterday, he scored his 12th NHL goal of the season. He has 21 points in 40 games.

Nick Suzuki (Canada), Juraj Slafkovsky (Slovakia), and Alexandre Texier (France) are the other Habs players to watch at the hockey tournament.

We'll see if any other players are added in due course.


overtime

– To be continued.

– Read on.

– Interesting.

facebook icon Share twitter icon Tweet linkedin icon Share
Copied!