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Player Discussion Kaapo Kakko: Part V

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Lafreniere worries me slightly less simply because it's been far less time. His covid rookie season was significantly shorter than Kakko's covid-shortened rookie season the year before.

It's year three for Kakko no matter how many games. Time to start showing up.

And he did, defensively, last year. Time for the points to start coming and fast.

Lafreniere, I can still buy that he's just hitting a rookie wall and learning.
 
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mas0764 said:
Lafreniere worries me slightly less simply because it's been far less time. His covid rookie season was significantly shorter than Kakko's covid-shortened rookie season the year before.

It's year three for Kakko no matter how many games. Time to start showing up.

And he did, defensively, last year. Time for the points to start coming and fast.

Lafreniere, I can still buy that he's just hitting a rookie wall and learning.
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He’s getting his chances. I’m not worried they will come with some confidence. No one is snakebitten all their life, unless they are cursed. Which is a real possibility with Kakko. Like wow I thought DeAngelo was snakebitten his first year with us but Kakko even more so. But look what happened. Kakko needs to shoot the puck more for sure though.
 
I'm not an advanced stats dogmatists but Kakko's corsi figures have gone from best on the roster back to average. Still an improvement over his rookie season, but I do genuinely think he's in a funk in his own head about the lack of offensive production in his career.

He's trying to late-career Rick Nash the puck into the net instead of taking close in shots, amongst other noticeable habits.

Aside from getting a lucky bounce or two to open up his scoring, I'm not sure there is a solution. Kakko knows he was drafted to be an offensive, scoring player, and the 'I'm playing a well rounded game" only gets you so far mentally when you're looking at the offensive production of a 4th line player.
 
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Fitzy said:
I'm not an advanced stats dogmatists but Kakko's corsi figures have gone from best on the roster back to average. Still an improvement over his rookie season, but I do genuinely think he's in a funk in his own head about the lack of offensive production in his career.

He's trying to late-career Rick Nash the puck into the net instead of taking close in shots, amongst other noticeable habits.

Aside from getting a lucky bounce or two to open up his scoring, I'm not sure there is a solution. Kakko knows he was drafted to be an offensive, scoring player, and the 'I'm playing a well rounded game" only gets you so far mentally when you're looking at the offensive production of a 4th line player.
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It's too late now, but if Kakko had played first PP rookie year, we could be looking at a very different player at this point for exactly this reason. It's the difference between a bad rookie season and one pretty comparable to Tim Stutzle's, and nobody is down on the German, least of all the German.
 
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Next 3 games should be a good opportunity for him and Laf to get on the board, especially after getting rested a few days. Fingers crossed.
 
Of 311 forwards who have played 100mins this season our forwards rank as such in iCorsi/60 and iSF/60 respectively, at 5v5:

Chytil - 55th and 65th
Kreider - 62nd and 67th


Zibanejad - 187th and 230th
Strome - 191st and 228th
Hunt - 197th and 263rd
Blais - 243rd and 259th


Kaapo - 283rd and 264th
Panarin - 249th and 300th


We have two forwards on the team that even attempt to shoot the puck.
 
I liked Kakko's game last night. This guy is basically going through the same sort of dry spell Buch went through a few years back. He's playing well enough to get points and the one disallowed last night was a really nice pass.
 
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Oscar Lindberg said:
Why would they joke about that? If it’s a joke it reflects on them even worse
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Idk I gotta hear it again. Maybe it came off bad I can't remember, but he was basically just saying that Kakko finally got his first point and of course it was taken away so he was "crying" on bench (as if to say u gotta be kidding me)...also Sam had nothing to do with it.
 
If Kakko displayed a flash of brilliance but it did not count, did it really happen?
 
Peltz said:
I liked Kakko's game last night. This guy is basically going through the same sort of dry spell Buch went through a few years back. He's playing well enough to get points and the one disallowed last night was a really nice pass.
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i absolutely understand why you say this. good post.
 
Fitzy said:
I'm not an advanced stats dogmatists but Kakko's corsi figures have gone from best on the roster back to average. Still an improvement over his rookie season, but I do genuinely think he's in a funk in his own head about the lack of offensive production in his career.

He's trying to late-career Rick Nash the puck into the net instead of taking close in shots, amongst other noticeable habits.

Aside from getting a lucky bounce or two to open up his scoring, I'm not sure there is a solution. Kakko knows he was drafted to be an offensive, scoring player, and the 'I'm playing a well rounded game" only gets you so far mentally when you're looking at the offensive production of a 4th line player.
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This advanced stats dogmatist frankly doesn’t really give a damn about his Corsi anymore.
 
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TheDirtyH said:
It's too late now, but if Kakko had played first PP rookie year, we could be looking at a very different player at this point for exactly this reason. It's the difference between a bad rookie season and one pretty comparable to Tim Stutzle's, and nobody is down on the German, least of all the German.
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Stutzle and down go together, because he's a diver
 
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I need to go back and watch some of his pre draft games but I don’t remember him being so reluctant to shoot before. I think confidence and comfort level are obviously at play but to me it seems his greatest strengths are also hurting him the most right now. He loves to hold the puck and work down low, carry behind the net etc but he doesn’t have the same time and space to play that game in the NHL. In spite of this he keeps defaulting back to what he knows best because it’s ingrained in his style of play and it brought him to where he is.

He’s struggling and when you struggle you fall back on what’s familiar. He needs to rethink his game and realize he needs to do everything just a little quicker and shoot rather than hold the puck to the point of running out of options. This is something you hear young players say a lot, once you get to the NHL you realize everyone is just as skilled and fast and big etc and sometimes what made you successful in the past no longer works and it’s the ones who can adjust and grow out of their comfort zone that carve out successful careers.

I’m keeping the faith and I don’t think we’re doing Laf or Kakko any favors with the lack of PP time etc that a lot of other top picks get the benefit of so maybe it’s not entirely the players fault but at some point people need to see results or at least trends pointing towards future success.
 
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I completely buy that his confidence is down, and I completely buy that the Quinn administration is largely (though not entirely, perhaps) responsible.

The guy looked tentative in that cab ride in to NYC from his earliest post-draft videos. He's always looked like a teenager uncomfortable in his own skin, uncomfortable in the big city away from his home. And he's never looked happy on the ice. And I highly, highly suspect that Quinn, possibly on orders from JD/Gorton, demanded that Kakko eschew his natural scoring instincts and they drilled it out of him by demanding strict adherence to some sort of defense-first regime that has stunted the creativity he needed to blossom into an NHL-level offensive force.

Hopefully it's not too late but I'm not sure that I see Gallant doing things any differently especially with Drury's new ridiculous grit and toughness before anything else mandate.
 
mas0764 said:
I completely buy that his confidence is down, and I completely buy that the Quinn administration is largely (though not entirely, perhaps) responsible.

The guy looked tentative in that cab ride in to NYC from his earliest post-draft videos. He's always looked like a teenager uncomfortable in his own skin, uncomfortable in the big city away from his home. And he's never looked happy on the ice. And I highly, highly suspect that Quinn, possibly on orders from JD/Gorton, demanded that Kakko eschew his natural scoring instincts and they drilled it out of him by demanding strict adherence to some sort of defense-first regime that has stunted the creativity he needed to blossom into an NHL-level offensive force.

Hopefully it's not too late but I'm not sure that I see Gallant doing things any differently especially with Drury's new ridiculous grit and toughness before anything else mandate.
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If there’s a grit and toughness mandate I don’t think Kakko is getting it lol. Jack Hughes is meaner than Kakko. Kakko never finishes a check even though he’s a very strong, big kid. I remember he used to throw Forsberg-esque reverse hits in Finland
 
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Kakko needs to shoot the puck, even that play where he made a nice pass to panarin shouldn't have happened because he held onto the puck too long until he worked his way out of a scoring chance
 
KreiderBomb said:
Kakko needs to shoot the puck, even that play where he made a nice pass to panarin shouldn't have happened because he held onto the puck too long until he worked his way out of a scoring chance
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There was nowhere to shoot. That play was really good. That was a flash of high end skill that were all begging for.

I do agree that he doesn’t shoot enough in general though.
 
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KreiderBomb said:
Kakko needs to shoot the puck, even that play where he made a nice pass to panarin shouldn't have happened because he held onto the puck too long until he worked his way out of a scoring chance
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My friends and I were discussing this play. They thought it was brilliant and I of course, the negative Nancy I am, was with you. ;)

I agree that while it ended up being a nice play, it was by no means intentional and shouldn’t have happened in the first place if he had even an ounce of confidence.
 
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mas0764 said:
Hopefully it's not too late but I'm not sure that I see Gallant doing things any differently especially with Drury's new ridiculous grit and toughness before anything else mandate.
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Can you point me to where you saw Drury or anyone else say grit and toughness before anything else?
 
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