Moving cross-country and leaving behind the only NHL team he’s ever called his own seems the best-case scenario to end a chaotic week for Kaapo Kakko.
Six seasons as a New York Ranger came to an abrupt conclusion Wednesday night when the Seattle Kraken acquired the Finnish 23-year-old in exchange for Will Borgen and 2025 third- and sixth-round picks. The former second overall pick in 2019 watched the Rangers’ 3-2 loss to the Blues Sunday from the sidelines, healthy scratched during the regular season for the first time.
All this arrives during a 3-7-0 stretch leaving the Rangers clinging onto the Eastern Conference playoff race, three points from tying the Ottawa Senators for the second Wild Card spot.
Frustrated, Kakko told Rangers media Tuesday he understood tough decisions must be made when losses become habitual, but felt Peter Laviolette’s choice of scratch was unjustified.
“It’s just easy to pick a young guy and boot him out. That’s how I feel, to be honest.”
To be dealt to the Kraken the next day appeared, from the outside, a consequential move to purge protest from a tense New York locker room. That was not necessarily the case.
“I don’t think it’s because of that. The team was playing not well enough, a lot of good players over there, need to do something,” Kakko explained over Zoom from Chicago Thursday morning, the setting of his Kraken debut. “I was waiting, something is going to happen. And I knew it might be me.”
Kakko realized his gut feeling came true when three missed calls from Rangers general manager Chris Drury greeted him as he finished up at the team’s Dallas hotel sauna the day of the trade. While he wouldn’t explicitly say whether he’d requested a trade beforehand at any point, Kakko confessed there were “talks” about the possibility.
Things took a turn between Kakko and the Rangers after he nearly set a new career-low in points (19) at the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, tied for 13th-most on the roster with Jonny Brodzinski and Brayden Schneider. He admitted he “wasn’t good enough” then, but felt diminished ice time– 13:16 on average a night, lowest of his career– contributed.
“I didn’t have a contract after the last season, so kind of thinking like, what should be the best thing for me and for the team also, you know?” Kakko said. “So we talked about it a little bit, but then ended up signing with the Rangers, wanted to play for them.”
Kraken general manager Ron Francis isn’t fazed by Kakko’s situation, nor of the possibility that the forward’s comments increased the likelihood of a trade. Communication between he and Drury began at least a week ago, with the deal ramping up within the last two days.
“I would think that, when he was a healthy scratch, that Chris got a lot of calls, not just from me. That tends to be the nature of the beast in our business, and we had already started having conversations when the comments came out,” Francis said Thursday. “It’s kind of an awkward situation, right? You got a disgruntled guy in your locker room. So, you know, did that speed things up? It probably did. But at the end of the day, Chris wasn’t just going to do something to do something.”
Shut out for the fifth time this season– and the second consecutive time against the Senators– at home on Tuesday, the Kraken are searching for any offense they can get their hands on. Although they average 3.2 goals a game over their last 10, they’re 4-5-1 in that stretch and unhappy with a lack of net-front traffic seen in recent games. Losing captain Jordan Eberle to injury until at least late February also leaves a hole at right wing Kakko’s able to fill.
Francis feels there’s untapped potential with Kakko, which is why a top-six opportunity and power play minutes await him with Seattle upon puck drop against the Blackhawks Thursday night.
“I think you’re always looking for bigger bodies that can get to the front,” he explained. “There’s a reason why the Rangers took him. He was a real good player at that point and for whatever reason, it just hasn’t panned out for him.”
“Hopefully we can get a little bit more out of him, get him back to playing the game that hopefully he has fun doing and loves playing and starts having some more success.”