Tepid Take: Kapanen's Tale of Two Seasons
In the frenized hours post-Kapanen trade, I've heard a lot of different takes on Kapanen and the trade. He's physical and has a mean streak - he's a perimeter player. He's a goalscorer - he's got a muffin. He's got great hands - he's Hagelin/Dupuis. He's defensively responsible - no he's not.
However the big one is that a lot of people regard Kapanen as a top sixer, a good piece to compete the jigsaw in Pittsburgh where it was three good top six wingers and AN Other. And a lot of people regard him as a third liner, one who's rarely been above average for the position.
If the former is correct, then Rutherford's deal will probably end up looking good. If the latter is correct, then the deal is probably bad. Which group is correct here? The answer is that it depends which of Kasperi Kapanen's two seasons you look at.
In 2018-19, Kapanen had his first full NHL season. He wasn't quite a rookie as he'd got 38 games last season in his breakthrough, but he was the next best thing to a rookie. He proceeded to breakout from that status with a 44 point season. In 2019-20, he followed up with 36 points in 69 games - Quelle Différence! But when you start to dig under the individual production, all sorts of differences do indeed reveal themselves.
The best place to look here is what happened when Kapanen was in the top 6.
In 2018-19, Kapanen spent 591:19 with Auston Matthews and 91:34 with John Tavares.
In his time with Matthews, he increased GF% by 17.57 and his xGF% by 1.38. Matthews had a 3.25 p/60 pace with him.
In his time with Tavares, he decreased Tavares' GF% by 13.03 and xGF% by by 1.75. Tavares had a 3.93 p/60 pace with him.
Based on 18/19, Kapanen is a player who can really help top 6 centres score, doesn't particularly affect possession metrics, and who gelled a lot better with Matthews than Tavares.
In 2019-20, Kapanen spent 101:34 with Matthews and 187:04 with Tavares.
In his time with Matthews, he increased Matthews' GF% by 17.42, but lowered his xGF% by 7.3. Matthews scored at 1.77 p/60 with him.
In his time with Tavares, he lowered Tavares' GF% by 25.63 and xGF% by 10.85. Tavares had a 1.28 p/60 pace with him.
The only constant here is that Kapanen gelled a lot better with Matthews than with Tavares. Elsewise he's a possession drag who impedes elite scorers. It worked out with Matthews, but in a way that at first glance suggests something highly unusual and unsustainable.
18/19 Kapanen would be a boon to the Penguins top six, an individually productive player who helps his team mates score and come out on top. 19/20 Kapanen remains individually productive but is otherwise more the opposite.
Why the change? Is there any particular reason to expect to get one and not the other?
Before I get to that I'd just like to talk briefly about is there anything about how the Toronto centres play, and how the Penguins centres play, that makes his success more likely. For this I'm relying heavily on Bryce Chevaller's visualisations of Sznajder's data on architecte-hockey.com.
If you look at Kapanen, you see a player who was a league leader last year in terms of zone entries, a strong player in terms of his forechecking, chance creation around the net, zone exits, takeaways and finishing, and not a lot else. His finishing would be more important if he took more shots and from better positions; his deep coverage in particular left a lot to be desired. In terms of Penguins comparables playing that sort of style, there's nothing that close, but the closest are Dominik Simon, Nick Bjugstad and Conor Sheary - one guy with a weird injury shortened sample and two guys who traditionally click very well with Crosby. Most people I know who've watched Kapanen closely feel pretty sure Kapanen won't mesh with Crosby and I trust that eye test, but the stats do have me second-guessing a little - Crosby could use a transition specialist and while Kapanen's attacking vision is heavily criticised, if those passes around the net area start connecting there's a chance of something special.
In any case, looking at the data suggests Toronto's centres and Pittsburgh's centres were doing very different things last season. Tavares and Matthew ranked highly for passing from deep and shot volume; Crosby and Malkin passed more than they shot, and were heavily involved in either zone entries or forechecking. Will this help Kapanen? It is noticeable in his goals from 19-20, that he had more one on one breakaway goals than two on ones. If Crosby and Malkin can offer more two on ones and just as many one on ones, this will help. The big change from 18-19 to 19-20 though was how many goals Kapanen got around the net as a result of good zone possession. What changed there? Is that the situation around him, or is Kapanen not doing his part in ensuring good cycles? Or were there good cycles with Kapanen not getting to the net front? Whatever happened, something did: Kapanen's xiG/60 dropped by .3 from one season to the next.
What else changed? In a vacuum, we see Kapanen's on ice shot/possession metrics get slightly better in terms of shot and chance prevention, but get markedly worse at creation - xGF p/60 falls from 2.7 to 2.25, xGA/60 goes down from 2.57 to 2.45. However, his defence has actually got slightly worse compared to his team (0.13 to 0.16 in relative numbers) and the fall from 0.22 to -0.29 for relative xGF/60 isn't good. We are back to why is Toronto failing to provide those quality chances for Kapanen, only now we know it wasn't a problem for the rest of the team.
The idea that Kapanen mightn't be pulling his weight defensively shows even more when shown in the light of the top 6 centres. No regular partner (100+ minutes) gave Tavares a higher xGA/60 (or a lower xGF/60 for that matter) this season and the same is true for Matthews (although their numbers stayed okay due to elite goaltending and at least had a decent xGF/60 together). And looking season on season; Matthews' and Kapanen's ability to create together didn't seem to really change, but their ability to defend got worse. Tavares and Kapanen went from firewagons both way to firewagons coming their way.
Finding the reasons for these stats would take more video than I have but in any case, the stats are clear - Kapanen's ability to dovetail with elite centres took a big nose dive last season. Fixing that will go a long way to making this a success. The obvious areas to look at seems to be the defensive effort and coverage, what happened to Kapanen's ability to get goals on the cycle, and why Kapanen is so much better with Matthews than Tavares.
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