{"id":945398,"date":"2026-10-25T06:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T06:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/945398\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T06:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T06:24:16","slug":"canadiens-focused-on-collective-game-without-suzuki-for-heritage-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/945398\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens focused on \u2018collective game\u2019 without Suzuki for Heritage Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forward Oliver Kapanen<\/a>\u00a0is again expected to move into the role of top line center between Slafkovsky and left wing Cole Caufield<\/a>\u00a0against Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

Kapanen missed the first seven games of the season because of a lower-body injury and is still looking for his first point going into his fourth game.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course we have to adapt a little bit,\u201d Kapanen said. \u201cI played with \u2018Slav\u2019 last year and I never played with Cole before. Of course, there are some new things, but I\u2019m just going to try and play my game and be good at both ends and do the best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kapanen had 37 points (22 goals, 15 assists) in 82 games for Montreal last season. The 23-year-old was selected by the Canadiens in the second round (No. 64) of the 2021 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been great; you can place him anywhere throughout the lineup,\u201d Caufield said. \u201cI thought he did a good job last game. I thought we were able to create some chances. When you put a new guy on a line like that, it might take a little bit of time, but I thought we played pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal was able to hold the lead against Chicago, which is something it has struggled doing early this season.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens are 1-2-1 after scoring first this season. They gave up the first goal against Chicago before scoring three straight and sealing the victory with an empty-net goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all knew that we played pretty good as a team, we played as a collective, team-wise,\u201d Kapanen said. \u201cWe have lost games in one period and haven\u2019t finished games like we wanted, but all knew we have it in the locker room and we have to trust the game and the results are going to be there for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forward Oliver Kapanen\u00a0is again expected to move into the role of top line center between Slafkovsky and left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-945398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945398","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=945398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}