After Monday’s early slate of games, the leading goal scorer at the 2024 IIHF World Championship is now 20-year-old Finn Oliver Kapanen. His two goals in his team’s 4-2 win over Norway give him five – one ahead of Canada’s Connor Bedard.
“I’m hearing that for the first time now but it’s good,” Kapanen joyfully said after the game. “It’s always fun to score. I enjoy it and I’ll try to score some more.”
Kapanen’s goal-scoring philosophy, either for himself or his team, doesn’t seem much more complicated than that. Finland was shut out by Czechia in its opening game, but has scored 12 goals in its two games since then. Kapanen got himself going with a hat trick in yesterday’s 8-0 win over Great Britain before keeping the momentum going against Norway.
“We just had to get pucks on net and then go there and create some ugly goals,” he said. “Yeah, that’s been the strategy and it’s working right now.”
As for his own strategy: “I’m just going to the net and trying to get some tips and lucky bounces. That’s all it is. I’m just trying to have that mentality that if I drive to the net, the goals will come.”
At 20 years of age, Kapanen had never played on the Finnish national team before this season and is the second-youngest player on this team after 18-year-old Konsta Helenius. When asked if he was surprised to make this team, he answered: “No, actually. I was pretty confident that I would make it if I played my own game and I did that.”
Being new to the national team, though, he didn’t know too many of the players long before the start of this tournament.
“Not many, just a couple of the Liiga players,” he said. “One of my teammates (defenseman Jesper Mattila) is here from KalPa. The rest, I didn’t know at first but we’ve had a good couple of weeks together now to get the team spirit on.”
Oliver is one of many Kapanens to get his start in the KalPa club, with some going on to stardom. Father Kimmo (a goalie), uncle Sammi and cousins Kasperi and Konsta are just expamples from the last two generations to come through the club. Sammi was even the club owner for a while after his NHL career ended and dad was a goaltending coach. Oliver has played nearly all of his career until now with KalPa, but next year will move on to Timrå in the Swedish Hockey League.
“I’ve been loaned to a couple of Finnish clubs along the way but not many,” said Kapanen. “Yeah, going to Sweden is the next step in my career and I’ll try to take that path to the NHL.”
Kapanen was a second-round draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens in 2021. He’s one of many young Montreal prospects in this tournament, along with Juraj Slafkovský of Slovakia and Cole Gauthier of the USA.
“I don’t know any of the players but I’ve been in contact with some of the system development guys,” Kapanen said about his contact with the Montreal organization. “We’ve in contact, nothing special, just checking to see how it’s going and everything’s fine.”