{"id":458598,"date":"2026-02-15T06:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T06:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/458598\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T06:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T06:33:16","slug":"finlands-anton-lundell-oliver-kapanen-miss-game-due-to-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/458598\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland’s Anton Lundell, Oliver Kapanen Miss Game Due To Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Team Finland managed an 11-0 win over Team Italy early on Saturday morning without one of their top centers. Florida panthers center Anton Lundell<\/a>\u00a0missed the heyday matchup due to illness per Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman<\/a>. Lundell\u2019s roomate in the Olympic villiage, center Oliver Kapanen<\/a>, was also scratched. Kapanen was rostered but benched in Finland\u2019s second game \u2013 a 4-1 win over rival Sweden. Lundell played nearly 19 minutes and scored one goal in that game, after going scoreless in the Olympic opener.<\/p>\n

Finland kept Colorado Avalanche winger Joel Kiviranta<\/a> and Ottawa Senators defender Nikolas Matinpalo<\/a> in the lineup against Italy. Kiviranta scored on both shots he took in 11 minutes of ice time. Matinpalo recorded a plus-one and two shots in eight minutes, but didn\u2019t make the scoresheet. He did score a goal in Finland\u2019s win over Sweden \u2013 a surprise for a defender who only has one goal in 75 career NHL games.<\/p>\n

Of note, Team Finland\u2019s women\u2019s team contracted noravrius \u2013 a common and contagious stomach virus \u2013 per ESPN<\/a>. It was not made clear if this bug spread to Lundell. Finland will hope he can rebound quickly either way, as Lundell held down the team\u2019s second-line center position before going down. He has scored 16 goals and 40 points in 54 games in the NHL. That is a 61-point scoring pace, which would shatter Lundell\u2019s previous career-high of 45 points, set last season. His ramped up scoring has coinceded with a boost to Florida\u2019s top-line where he is filling in for injured compatriot Aleksander Barkov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kapanen\u2019s availability will be less certain. It was not clear if he was scratched as a precaution, or to continue his route out of the lineup after seeing no ice time in Finland\u2019s last game. The NHL rookie has 18 goals and 31 points in 57 games with the Montreal Canadiens this season. He was a standout in both Finland\u2019s Liiga and Sweden\u2019s SHL before moving to North America. Kapanen scored 34 points in 51 games of the 2023-24 Liiga season and 35 points in 36 games of the 2024-25 SHL season. He will rotate onto the team\u2019s fourth-line, and fill a shoot-first role, if he\u2019s slotted back into the lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Team Finland managed an 11-0 win over Team Italy early on Saturday morning without one of their top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[245,57,5,21,4,1618,15233],"class_list":{"0":"post-458598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-anton-lundell","9":"tag-florida-panthers","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-oliver-kapanen","14":"tag-team-finland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116073254623700812","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}