2020 NHL Season: Grading the Toronto Maple Leafs’ right wingers at season pause

With the 2020 NHL season caught in the midst of an unprecedented pause, we take the opportunity to grade the Toronto Maple Leafs’ campaign thus far. Today’s topic: Evaluating the team’s right wingers.

Welcome to the third installment of a seven-part series on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ 2019-20 season. Caught in the midst of the hockey world’s unprecedented pause, now is the time to reflect on what may very well go down as one of the more dynamic-altering campaigns — for better or for worse — in club history.

Largely hyped as a potential season for the books, Toronto’s current run has been defined by a quality of inconstancy. The team has established itself as the NHL’s foremost Jekyll and Hyde organization, with the line between pretender and contender for Lord Stanley’s trophy growing increasingly thin throughout the progression of games.

As such, questions continue to be raised about the state of the franchise. Are the Maple Leafs actually in a serious position to compete for glory? Will the present campaign ultimately become yet another disappointment? And who bears responsibility for the club’s shortcomings?

Over the course of this series, we shall unpack some of the aforementioned questions by grading many facets of the organization. For the purpose of conducting a thorough review, we will only report on players who have skated in more than 10 games in a Maple Leafs uniform across the 2019-20 season. Consequently, the likes of Pontus Aberg, Adam Brooks, Kevin Gravel, Kasimir Kaskisuo, Egor Korshkov, Denis Malgin, Mason Marchment and Calle Rosen shall be excluded from consideration.

With that, let’s move on to today’s topic: Evaluating the team’s right wingers.

Kasperi Kapanen

Games Played: 69
Goals: 13
Assists: 23
Points: 36

A whirlwind of emotion — both on and off the ice — surrounded Maple Leafs right winger Kasperi Kapanen throughout much of the 2019-20 campaign.

The tumultuous nature of the 23-year-old’s season was set into motion near the end of an Oct. 5, 2019 matchup, when Kapanen threw part of his broken stick at defenseman Jeff Petry of the Montreal Canadiens. Petry was then awarded a penalty shot — which he buried — and the game’s momentum shifted, as Montreal defeated Toronto in a shootout by a final score of 6-5.

Kapanen was left to shoulder much of the blame for the loss, stating, “I know everybody knows it’s a big mistake on my part…And if I knew that rule existed or if I thought I was actually going to hit his stick, I wouldn’t have done that.”

A second point of contentiousness emerged at the beginning of February, when Kapanen was healthy scratched from a key Saturday night game against the Ottawa Senators. Once again, the right winger was left to assume accountability for his actions, noting that he had arrived late to practice on the Friday before the matchup.

“They felt like sitting me out was something I deserved and I agree,” Kapanen remarked, “So I just have to take responsibility for that.”

His play on the ice was mostly good — if at times marked by a relative sense of inconsistency. The Finnish forward tallied 13 goals and 23 assists for 36 points over 69 games played, during which he floated between each of the club’s lines. He notched three points (one goal and two assists) on the power play and ushered forth fairly strong penalty killing when needed, scoring twice shorthanded.

Trade talk continues to occupy the talk circuit of Toronto media — the umbrella of which Kapanen is often brought under. And while a move for the winger remains a possibility, Kapanen is still the type of player that General Manager Kyle Dubas loves to bet on.

Look for Kapanen to seek a finer level of consistent play if hockey resumes.

Grade: B