2018—2019 Kaapo Kakko was peak hockey
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Last couple of years of Kaapo Kakko's career haven't quite been the highlight reel we hoped for when he got drafted to the NHL. But last month, his performance in the Milano-Cortina Olympics reminded me of why I love to watch him play so much. 2018-2019 Kaapo Kakko was one of the most exciting and fun players to watch — and it didn't hurt that he played for my local team.
Kakko was such a versatile scorer. He could slapshot it from a one-timer on power play from the right side, somewhat similarly to another TPS alumni Mikko Rantanen. Or he can skate fast and deke defensemen and goalies with his smooth hands. He has even scored a surprising amount of wrap around goals in his early career, displaying great awareness of the situation and where the other team's players are.
April 2018, Chelyabinsk and Magnitogorsk, Russia.
Young 17-year old Kaapo Kakko has played his first few games in the Finnish league when he joins the Finnish national team in the IIHF U18 World Championships. Finland and Kakko wins the gold, Kakko finishing 5th in the scoring leaders with 4+6=10 in 7 games.
August—December 2018, Turku, Finland
He starts the next season in the main roster of the Finnish league team TPS with Champions Hockey League games. He scores two beauties in the CHL group stage games but the team is eliminated.
Then he scores in his first Liiga goal in the first game of the saeason. And then again in the second game. He impresses the crowd with his great shot, smooth hands and great awareness of space in the ice. That's when you start to notice this kid.
A great example of his awareness and slapshot comes from this game against Mikkelin Jukurit from September 2018:
Kakko has the patience to look at the space, finds an opening in the formation, gives a perfectly timed pass to Filppula and immediately repositions himself ready to shoot from an immediate return pass.
He has his ups and downs during the start of the season. He has a 13 game dry spell but finishes the fall with 9 goals and 11 assists and earns a spot in the U20 national team.
December 2018—January 2019, Vancouver, Canada
If people in Finland started to notice Kakko in the late fall, the world would come to witness his skills in the U20 tournament in Canada. In the opening match against Sweden, he gets an assist. He plays a decent tournament that culminates to a game-winning goal against the US in the final game, just 86 seconds before the end to win the gold to Finland. The kid is 17 years old and has won two international gold medals within a year.
January—March 2019, Turku, Finland
After the U20, he picks up the speed in the Finnish league. He had a great line chemistry with Oula Palve and the two seemed to be able to find each other on the ice with great accuracy.
March 9th, he scores his 21st of the season against HIFK to tie the Liiga's U18 goal record with Alexander Barkov. It's such a beauty. He gets the puck behind the goal line, shoots and gets the rebound. He then dishes it to a team mate to the side, turns his skating towards the goal, gets the puck back and patiently dekes the goalie out of the way.
5 days later, on the last game of the regular season he scores another to break the record. It's one of my favourite goals from him of the season. He starts by trying to score from a small angle on one side of the goal. When that doesn't work, he gets the rebound, goes behind the goal, waits for the goalie to move to the wrong direction and puts it in with a wrap around. That awareness and ability to act quickly on what he sees makes him so much fun to watch.
He scores four more goals in the playoffs but the team falls to HPK in the first round.
May 2019, Košice, Slovakia
IIHF World Championships in Slovakia. Last time the tournament visited Slovakia in 2011, young Mikael Granlund wowed the world and Finland won the championship for the first time in 16 years.
Game 1, Finland against Canada. Finland is quite an underdog going into the match. 6 minutes in, Ilomäki passes to Rajala who redirects the pass between his legs to center ice. Kakko picks it up, splits the D, dekes Matt Murray and scores the opener. I still remember this goal like it was yesterday. We were watching the game with colleagues in the sauna lounge of our office and when Kakko took Murray to lunch, I knew we were witnessing something special.
On the last minute, he takes the puck away from Canada and chips the puck in to the empty net for a second. Generally, goals socred to an empty net feel a bit cheap to count for player's record. But there are two interesting points here: first, Kakko steals the puck and uses his speed to guarantee a goal and second, he was put on the ice on the most important moments of the game to defend the lead. That's a show of trust by the coaching staff. It's no coincidence that he scored two empty netters in this tournament. Big players play during big moments.
In game 2 against home team Slovakia, Kakko scores a hat trick with three very different goals. His first goal, to take Finland up 2-1, is a big slap shot from the blue line after a feed from Niko Mikkola. The pass isn't a straight pass though but a wobbly bounce from the side. The shot is incredible though, a bit of a knucklepuck if you will.
His second goal is pure deking talent. Once again, he gets a pass from Mikkola, this time to behind the goal line. As the defender comes at him with a poke check, Kakko slides the puck between the defender's legs and scores with a backhand. Here he beats the defender one on one with great understanding of the situation.
Two games, 5+0.
Against Denmark, Kakko scores another beauty. He gets to a good speed on the right side, approaches the side of the net, toe drags to take out both a defence man and the goalie but insted of taking the puck behind the net with his momentum, he sneaks it in while being partially behind the net himself. Very similar but even sweeter than the goal against Canada.
This wasn't the first time he scored such a goal though. Three months earlier, February 23rd, he scored almost identical goal against KalPa in the Finnish league:
While his scoring then dries up for the rest of the tournament, he playes a fantastic tournament which, combined with a stellar performance in the Finnish league, earns him a 2nd spot in the NHL Draft, picked up by the Rangers.
Finland won the IIHF World Championships, netting Kakko his third international gold and completing the trifecta of U18, U20 and mens gold in the span of 13 months. At the age of 18.
And beyond
On October 12th, on his third NHL game as a New York Ranger, he scores his first NHL game in the most Kaapo Kakko fashion he can. He brings the puck in, leaves it to a team mate, moves behind the defenders, gets the pass and dekes the goalie to score his first.
Unfortunately, in his six years in New York, he never truly broke through. His best season before being traded to Kraken was 2022-23 season with 18+22=40 in 82 games.