{"id":130116,"date":"2022-07-21T11:55:02","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T15:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=130116"},"modified":"2022-07-21T11:59:02","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T15:59:02","slug":"pittsburgh-penguins-winger-stays-with-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2022\/07\/21\/pittsburgh-penguins-winger-stays-with-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Penguins Winger Stays With Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kapanka01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kasperi Kapanen<\/a> has signed a new contract. The Pittsburgh Penguins winger is staying put. The pending RFA has signed an agreement with the Penguins and is for two years and is worth up to $6.4 million dollars. The winger has a lot of upside to his game and Pittsburgh found a way to keep him.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LetsGoPens?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LetsGoPens<\/a> have re-signed forward Kasperi Kapanen to a two-year deal with an AAV of $3.2M.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; SiriusXM NHL Network Radio (@SiriusXMNHL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SiriusXMNHL\/status\/1550135890898452491?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Kasperi Kapanen Stays with Penguins<\/h2>\n<p>The Pittsburgh Penguins have only so much money to give out, but found a way to make it work. They already inked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rustbr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bryan Rust<\/a> to a new extension. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/letankr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kris Letang<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/malkiev01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Evgeni Malkin<\/a> were both UFA and new ownership and management found a way to keep them both.<\/p>\n<p>Kapanen was a former first-round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins before being traded to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/leafs\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>. His first three seasons did not go as planned, but his last four is where he made his mark.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2021-22 season, the young winger scored 11 goals, 21 assists and 32 points. He has hit double-digit goals the last four years but no more than 20. He finished in the top 10 in points and spent most of his time on a line with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/carteje01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeff Carter<\/a> and then Evgeni Malkin. <a href=\"https:\/\/moneypuck.com\/lines.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">While playing with Malkin and winger Danton Heinen<\/a>, the line averaged 2.88 goals for per 60 minutes. It was one of the better lines for Pittsburgh and he did his fair share. He had strong possession numbers with a Corsi For Percentage at 56% and an on ice goals percentage at 55.6%.<\/p>\n<h3>Why Kapanen Is Worth Paying For<\/h3>\n<p>Kapanen is a good player worth having in your lineup. Granted he&#8217;s been blessed playing alongside star centres in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/matthau01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Auston Matthews<\/a> and Malkin, but the winger has upside. Kapanen is a speedy winger who has play-making ability and can put the puck in the net. In the last four seasons he has surpassed the 30 point mark and a career high 44 points in 2018-19. The winger will benefit the team with his production and his ability to slot up and down the lineup and play alongside anyone.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means For The Player<\/h3>\n<p>The forward will look to justify his new deal in order to get a bigger payday. The veteran winger, while still being young has produced enough to earn his pay. He&#8217;ll look to help the Penguins stay a factor in the Metropolitan Division.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">For those wondering, Jared McCann passed the player of the game helmet to Kasperi Kapanen. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bMWXzgmfSh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/bMWXzgmfSh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/penguins\/status\/1368769091222310914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 8, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kasperi Kapanen has signed a new contract. The Pittsburgh Penguins winger is staying put. The pending RFA has signed an agreement with the Penguins and is for two years and is worth up to $6.4 million dollars. The winger has a lot of upside to his game and Pittsburgh found a way to keep him. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4194,"featured_media":130983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4547,34,4548,12],"tags":[228,1061,544,2220,259,662,6022,140],"class_list":["post-130116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-penguins","tag-auston-matthews","tag-bryan-rust","tag-evgeni-malkin","tag-kasperi-kapanen","tag-kris-letang","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-pittsburgh-penguins-news","tag-sidney-crosby"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}