{"id":272000,"date":"2025-11-09T11:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T11:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/272000\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T11:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T11:58:09","slug":"canadiens-oliver-kapanen-off-to-strong-start-as-rookie-goals-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/272000\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens’ Oliver Kapanen off to strong start as rookie goals leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 Rookie sensation Ivan Demidov<\/a> has met his lofty expectations with a hot start to the season for the Montreal Canadiens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His fellow first-year linemate, meanwhile, might be surpassing them.<\/p>\n

Oliver Kapanen<\/a> leads all NHL rookies with six goals through 15 games after scoring once and adding an assist in Saturday\u2019s 6-2 win over the Utah Mammoth<\/a>, helping Montreal improve to 10-3-2.<\/p>\n

The production \u2014 Kapanen also has four assists \u2014 might surprise some, but not his coach or teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a great player. I\u2019m not really surprised,\u201d said linemate Alex Newhook<\/a>. \u201cWe all knew what he\u2019s capable of doing here, and he\u2019s been proving it early on.<\/p>\n

\u201cGets to the right area, scores in those spots where he\u2019s getting to, and it\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head coach Martin St. Louis<\/a> highlighted Kapanen\u2019s intelligence on the ice, crediting the 22-year-old Swede for producing while playing a responsible 200-foot game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very smart player, and he does all that without cheating, without just looking for those things,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cI think that Kappy, one of his great qualities, he plays the game that\u2019s in front of him, he does the actions that the game requires.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s rare that you aren\u2019t rewarded, offensively, when you have the tools. And he has the tools \u2026 I\u2019m happy with how he\u2019s getting that production offensively. He doesn\u2019t do that at the cost of not doing the job on the other side of the ice.”<\/p>\n

Last season, Kapanen had just two assists in 18 regular-season games and one assist in three playoff contests. The six-foot-two, 194-pound centre spent most of the year in the Swedish Hockey League, where he posted 35 points in 36 games.<\/p>\n

Would he have believed he\u2019d lead all rookies in goals through 15 games?<\/p>\n

\u201cYes and no,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just rolling well now and when I get chances I put the puck in the net, so it\u2019s rolling well and of course playing with a good line, get some good chances so it helps a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kapanen\u2019s production is part of a larger trend of secondary scoring from the Canadiens, who can now rely on more than just the top line of Cole Caufield<\/a>, Nick Suzuki<\/a> and Juraj Slafkovsky to score goals.<\/p>\n

The second line of Kapanen, Newhook and Demidov has combined for 16 goals and 35 points through 15 games, including two goals and five points on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Kapanen and Demidov combined on Montreal\u2019s first goal with a give-and-go. Newhook later produced the highlight of the night by deking between J.J. Peterka\u2019s legs on a rush before ripping a wrist shot to give Montreal a 3-2 lead in the second period.<\/p>\n

Kirby Dach<\/a>, meanwhile, scored on a breakaway late to make it 6-2 with his fourth goal in three games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s big,\u201d Newhook said. \u201cYou need depth in this league. It\u2019s hard to win without it, and when you\u2019re getting production from every line, it\u2019s hard for teams to be able to defend that all the way down the lineup, so it\u2019s good when everyone\u2019s rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

COLD CAUFIELD<\/p>\n

Not to be overlooked, Caufield scored twice to take the NHL goal-scoring lead with 12 on the season. And both goals came from sharp angles near the goal line.<\/p>\n

Caufield squeaked the puck between the post and Vejmelka\u2019s glove in the second period before jamming a puck into the net short-side a second time to make it 4-2 in the third.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather shoot from above the goal-line,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cSometimes the puck just gets down there and you make a read.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe also catches the other way, so I\u2019d say if it\u2019s his blocker, there\u2019s no chance that\u2019s going in, but we do a lot of pre-scouting. Not a high-percentage look, but it sometimes goes in.\u201d<\/p>\n

SHUT IT DOWN<\/p>\n

The Canadiens have had trouble holding on to third-period leads this season, including Thursday\u2019s 4-3 overtime loss to New Jersey when Montreal led 3-2 late.<\/p>\n

This time, the Canadiens entered the third up 3-2 and piled on with three more goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur best third period of the year,\u201d goalie Sam Montembeault<\/a> said. \u201cWe kept playing against them, we kept applying pressure and they were down by a goal, so they were going to try to force something.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust had to wait for them to make mistakes and we capitalized on the other end.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2025.<\/p>\n

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 Rookie sensation Ivan Demidov has met his lofty expectations with a hot start to the season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-272000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}