Cult of Hockey segment review: Games 41 to 50
The best Edmonton Oilers news of the day? That Kasperi Kapanen was back on the ice skating today after leaving Sunday evening’s game after wiping out into the boards skates first. It looked at that moment like Kapanen might be out for some time, after already missing more than two and a half months of the season due to a knee injury.
When he came back from that injury earlier this month, he was promoted right away to the second line with Leon Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin. The promotion seemed like a stretch, even if Kapanen had played well with those same two forwards in the 2025 playoffs.
But in the seven games before he got hurt on Sunday, he had three goals and seven points. He was hitting hard, skating fast and combining with Draisaitl and Podkolzin on a dangerous, aggressive, deep o-zone forecheck and puck-protect monster of a cycle attack.
The talk around Edmonton has been the Oilers bringing in a Top 9 forward for the playoffs, preferably a centre but also maybe a wing. If Kapanen can keep up this level of play I’ll suggest such talk may well go out the window and team can look at bolstering its defence instead.
Kapanen has been playing exactly like you would hope a new winger acquired in trade would do. If Kapanen is already doing it, why make the trade?
Kapanen has played like a $5 million a year forward. It’s as if Stan Bowman was searching under every couch and inside every closet of the NHL for the right trade but tucked away in his own furnace room he suddenly came upon a forgotten $5 million winger, so now he doesn’t have to go out and get one.
Problems solved, metrics better
With the Oilers gradually putting together forward lines that work, the team’s shot metrics rocketed up in this past ten game segment.
The won-loss record was still five wins and five losses, but the points percentage was 0.6 and Edmonton had a 58.3 Goals For percentage (GF%), its best GF% for any 10-game segment so far this year. Even better was Edmonton’s Grade A shot percentage this segment, a gaudy 63.5 GrAS%. Previously this year the Oilers had given up as many Grade A shots as they had created, but Edmonton’s offensive play has exploded in recent games.
Team metrics after 50 games
Two-way monsters
At even strength, a number of Oilers forwards dominated the NHL game this past 10 games, namely Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Kapanen, Curtis Lazar, Vasily Podkolzin, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Trent Frederic, Matt Savoie, Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, Jake Walman and Ty Emberson. They all played their best two-way hockey of the season in this most recent segment.
Can they keep it up? When we look at the 10-game splits for Grade A shots plus-minus at even strength, we see many players shooting up, then shooting down. It’s not easy to maintain a high level of two-way play, but it’s excellent news that many Oilers have found their best games. It means they might be able to jack up their performance to a new height for a time when it counts most in the playoffs.
Grade A 41-50
Player grades
When it comes to Cult of Hockey game grades this segment, we see a dozen player with strong average scores, led by Tristan Jarry at 7.5 out of 10 in his two games. Fellow goalie Connor Ingram was at 6.5 out of 10, a good mark, though it was brought down by one rancid game where he scored a two out of 10.
Kapanen? He scored 7.0 out of 10.
And he’s one 12 internal locks and/or candidates to play in Edmonton’s Top 9 in the playoffs: McDavid, Draisaitl, RNH, Hyman, Podkolzin, Kapanen, Roslovic, Howard, Savoie, Frederic, Mangiapane, Hutson
Player grades 41 to 50
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