The 22-year-old winger brings several intangible qualities to the ice that vary the Blueshirt's on-ice product.
The 22-year-old winger brings several intangible qualities to the ice that vary the Blueshirt's on-ice product.
TSN's Darren Dreger reported on Tuesday that the New York Rangers are fielding calls regarding 22-year-old forward Kaapo Kakko ahead of the March 8 trade deadline.
The move would shift the team's thesis statement and identity if it utilized Kakko as a trade asset. That is all in the bigger picture stratosphere.
In a hockey world that has become more oriented, the Rangers would be sacrificing a player who possesses several intangible qualities.
The Finnish native is impossible to knock off of the puck, is defensively responsible, and has played as a complimentary wing on the Rangers' top unit and as a checking line forward on the third line.
Kakko has 133 career takeaways and 52.7% Corsi For. Not many statistics can point to his combination of size, skill, and hockey IQ. His three-zone work is sound.
The way he uses his six-foot-two, 206-pound frame to protect the puck and buy time for teammates with mastery is what sets him apart from the rest of the Blueshirts' lineup.
A team deploying the same players rarely succeeds. The reality is players of Kakko's style are often counted out in the evolving world of Michigan goals and inflated production levels.
It can be declared that Kakko, at age 22, is not the player that the team drafted in 2019. The goal-scoring and production have not translated to the NHL level in the last five seasons.
But the player he has become is still essential to the club's success and future.
With a cap ceiling that is going to increase this summer, there is no clear reason to move on from a player with 1RW complimentary potential skating as a third-line lock.
The roster is already thin at the right-wing position and has a third line that does not have a clear identity. Moving an asset that plays in those positions only hurts the flexibility of the lineup.
Operating with a seldom $2.1 million cap hit and an unrestricted free agent this summer bearing his possession aptitude will hardly affect decisions come July 1.
Three forwards on the roster (sans Filip Chytil) are under 30 years old.
It would be categorized as another move in New York that sacrifices young talent to shift into a concrete win-now window. Is that a proactive move or reactive to what the roster has become and accomplished?
The Rangers would have to be returning a bonafide star in their prime with term to move on from Kakko. That has not faired well for teams like the Los Angeles Kings and their acquisition of Pierre Luc Dubois.