TORONTO – An ominous healthy scratch loomed over the Battle of Ontario, both literally and figuratively.
Kasperi Kapanen — he of your favourite or your most feared trade rumour du jour — had participated in every Toronto Maple Leafs game this season and skated in Friday’s practice.
So, it spurred much chatter on and offline to see the speedy winger stationary, exchanging blue helmet for a stylish newsboy cap.
Kapanen was forced to sit in the press box and watch his club battle victoriously over the Ottawa Senators in a tight 2-1 overtime finish at Scotiabank Arena Saturday.
“Internal accountability is really what it is,” coach Sheldon Keefe said post-game, remaining purposely vague as he fielded five questions on Kapanen’s surprise one-game punishment and another five on the game itself.
“We had chatted about it yesterday a little bit and then made our decision. I wanted to sleep on it, and talking with Kappy this morning, we made a decision and went from there.”
Keefe twice said Kapanen could speak further to the mysterious issue at Monday’s player availability.
The heat has been transferred.
The embarrassment is public.
Speculate away.
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What we will take away from Kapanen being held to task in such a broadcasted manner is this: Keefe does not want to be painted by some wide brush as simply the “fun parent.”
That just because the new guy is gung-ho for goal-scoring, content to skip morning skates and taps an in-house laptop DJ to crank Travis Scott bangers during Leafs practices doesn’t mean he jumped up from the Marlies to get walked all over.
Keefe entered the dressing room and blasted the boys for giving up and embarrassing their backbone, Frederik Andersen, in the wake of a Dec. 3’s 6-1 shellacking in Philadelphia.
The rookie coach also stood at the podium and called out his young group for being “immature” in a pair of careless losses as the Leafs stumbled toward their late-January bye week.
And the results since returning from vacay have been excellent: 3-0.
For the third consecutive game, Toronto held its opposition to three goals or fewer. This, despite using backup Michael Hutchinson in a non-back-to-back situation, part of the organization’s plan to cherry-pick smart, scheduled starts for its No. 2 in order to better manage all-star Andersen’s workload.
“We’ll take every game and every week really as it comes, but we think this one made sense for today,” Keefe said.
“It’s natural that (Hutchinson) would be insecure about his place in the whole deal here, but he’s played well, and he’s earned some wins, and he feels like he belongs here now. So I think each day you can just see a little bit more personality in him, and that’s a really good thing.”
For everyone involved.
Toronto was forced to dress seventh defenceman Martin Marincin (Travis Dermott is ill) and did surrender its share of odd-man rushes, including a dangerous Brady Tkachuk breakaway.
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But Hutchinson stood his ground, battling strong in a rare low-scoring affair in this building.
“He has his swagger back. You can see it when he is in that net,” Mitch Marner said. “Gives the whole team confidence when you see him coming out and facing those pucks and making some of those big saves.”
Following a goal-free first frame, Ottawa defenceman (and another player regularly appearing on trade bait lists near you) Mark Borowiecki — got the visitors on the board with a seeing-eye point shot that beat Hutchinson high.
But ex-Senator Jason Spezza — memorably scratched by former coach Mike Babcock here against Ottawa in the season opener — knotted the contest with a fully cocked, 145.9 km/h power-play slapshot from the left circle that zinged high and clean through Craig Anderson’s short side.
“It was a bullet,” John Tavares said. “It’s such a sneaky shot. It’s such a hard read for the goaltender, with that long reach and his ability to kind of look people off and be deceptive.”
“My whole life I’ve been told to shoot the puck more,” Spezza confessed with a grin.
While this provincial battle currently pales in importance and vitriol to that other one, the Leafs and those neutral-zone-choking Sens did open up the action in the final five minutes to provide scoring chances and gasps aplenty.
A Tavares post here, a beauty cross-crease cut by Anthony Duclair there, a William Nylander game-on-his-stick chance… denied.
Until, finally, Marner drew an interference penalty and froze the clock by electing to shoot instead of pass, with Leafs assistant Paul McFarland deploying a four-forward power play in 3-on-3 overtime.
“(Marner) had the lane and made good on it, so probably caught them off-guard,” Keefe explained. “We knew they were going to make things pretty hard on our shooters, on Willy (Nylander) and Matty (Auston Matthews) on the sides, so we thought there might be a lane there for Mitch to shoot or to look for John at the bottom.”
That plan worked.
Now, will we be able to say the same for Kapanen’s wrist-slap?
This club-invoked suspension harkens back to Nazem Kadri’s three-game internal ban way back in March of 2015.
Kadri was 24 at the time. Those on the outside wondered if he might get traded. Kapanen is 23. Those on the outside wonder if he might get traded.
Kadri, of course, learned from his punishment. He earned a nice contract extension. He leaped from a 20-goal man to a 30-goal one. And although he was traded four years later, he’d matured and brought a fair return.
To a lesser degree, Kapanen — who just seven months ago celebrated a three-year contract extension — may be nearing a crossroads of his own in Toronto.
His scoring has dipped.
His fit on a line — any line — has been in a state of flux since October, and the Leafs’ cap issues and desire for an upgrade in defensive depth have cast doubt on whether Kapanen will still be wearing blue and white on Feb. 25, the day after the trade deadline.
Without knowing all details, the player’s timing for an issue of “internal accountability” looks problematic, and yet it could serve as the perfect wake-up call.
“Whatever’s thrown our way,” Tavares said, “we want to find a way to handle it, especially with 30 games left.”
Ostensibly, the captain was talking about grinding out two points in overtime with their second-best goalie in net.
But his sentiment could be felt all the way up in the press box, where another game is at stake.
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