Sami Kapanen on son Kasperi's Oilers surge and the ‘opportunity of a lifetime' to grow a family legacy

New York Times

13 hours ago

EDMONTON — Watching Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final in the wee hours of the morning from his home in Finland, Sami Kapanen could hardly believe his eyes.
He'd seen that stat line before. He'd seen that result before.
It was exactly 23 years to the day, in fact, since the only other time someone carrying Finland's most famous hockey family's name had the chance to get it engraved in the rounded silver edges of the Cup.
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'Scary,' Sami told The Athletic on Thursday. 'It's scary how much is the same.'
Consider that he was a 28-year-old forward playing for the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2002 Cup Final against the Detroit Red Wings. That series began on June 4. He had a big hand in the Hurricanes' victory at Joe Louis Arena to open the best-of-seven.
'Game 1, we won in overtime,' he recalled. 'I had two assists.'
On Wednesday, he watched from afar as his son Kasperi, a 28-year-old forward with the Edmonton Oilers, picked up two assists in an uplifting overtime victory over the Florida Panthers.
History sometimes rhymes.
The respective stat lines from their Stanley Cup debuts are eerily similar:
Sami Kapanen, June 4, 2002: Two assists, two shots, 23 shifts, 21:22 ice time
Kasperi Kapanen, June 4, 2025: Two assists, two shots, 26 shifts, 20:28 ice time
Of course, both father and son hope the similarities end there. Sami's Hurricanes dropped the next four games to Detroit in 2002, and he still carries regrets about the experience.
He picked up a gruesome injury that season when two six-inch pieces of fiberglass from a broken stick embedded in his palm just before the Olympic break. He never got his game on track during the playoffs that followed, scoring just once in 23 games following a 27-goal regular season. He was shouldering a heavy weight during what wound up being the only Cup Final appearance of a 12-year NHL career.
'I wish I could go back and just play,' Sami said Thursday. 'Just enjoy it. Don't worry about the numbers.'
There are certainly some lessons to be found in there for Kasperi, a 2014 first-round pick who has twice been claimed off waivers during a twisting career in which he's never quite made good on his potential. That's how Kapanen arrived in Edmonton from the St. Louis Blues on Nov. 19, and he viewed the latest trip through the waiver wire as a potential make-or-break proposition on his NHL career.
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To see the way he played Wednesday, you'd have trouble believing going on waivers was even possible.
Kapanen used his speed to get in on the forecheck and disrupt the Panthers with some effective hits in Game 1 and split through defensemen Niko Mikkola and Seth Jones to create a partial breakaway in overtime before ringing a shot off the outside of the right post behind Sergei Bobrovsky.
Couple that with his two assists, and it was about all you could ask for from a depth forward who spent nine games in the press box to open these playoffs for Edmonton.
'He's gaining more and more confidence by the period right now,' said Sami, adding that he doesn't think he's seen his son play this well since he was Evgeni Malkin's linemate in Pittsburgh during the 2021 season.
Sami described Kasperi as an 'emotional player' who needs to feel the trust of his coach to perform at his best. Everything started to fall into place, he said, after the series-clinching overtime goal Kasperi scored to finish off the Vegas Golden Knights in Round 2.
'He kind of showed himself that 'I've still got it,'' said Sami. 'When he feels good, good things happen.'
Kapanen the younger has scored more than his share of massive goals, from the overtime winner in Helsinki to win Finland a gold at the 2016 World Juniors to a double-overtime playoff winner for the Toronto Maple Leafs in Washington as an NHL rookie in 2017 to his series-clincher against Vegas.
The Oilers pursued Kapanen as a free agent last summer, when he chose instead to remain with the Blues on a one-year contract. When he arrived off waivers, he found an incredibly close team of committed professionals who helped him rediscover his love of the game.
'It was just an eye-opener,' Kapanen said. 'It lit a fire under me. Just my love for the game has just grown ever since I've come here.'
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By pursuing a career in hockey, he essentially got into the family business. His grandfather, Hannu, played for Finland at the 1976 Olympics, and Kasperi counts time spent in the Philadelphia Flyers dressing room with Peter Forsberg, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter among his childhood memories because of Sami's 831-game NHL career.
The Kapanen Clan — as they're known in Finnish — are the only hockey family in the world that have had five different members represent the national team at a major international tournament.
They are heavily invested in possibly seeing that name etched into the Stanley Cup this summer.
'I come from a pretty big hockey family,' Kasperi said. 'So after games, it's usually mom, dad, uncle, grandma, grandpa, cousins who will text me. It's a little overwhelming at times. They're just happy that I'm finally here and I've got a chance to win.'
Sami hasn't allowed himself to start dreaming about what a Stanley Cup party might look like back home in Kuopio if the Oilers manage to finish the job. He doesn't want to get ahead of himself.
He plans to travel to Edmonton to watch Game 5 of this series from the stands at Rogers Place and will continue pulling all-nighters from Finland to watch the other games on TV in the meantime.
'I'm so excited,' Sami said. 'I can see it. His game is coming. It's getting better and better. There's so many things that are kind of clicking right now.
'It's the opportunity of a lifetime and that's the time that you want to perform.'
(Top photos of Sami and Kasperi Kapanen: Elsa and Steph Chambers / Getty Images)