First, there was the demotion. Then, the injury. Potential had always followed Kaapo Kakko — once the No. 2 overall pick — throughout the early stages of his Rangers career. That returned ahead of this season, when head coach Peter Laviolette stuck him on the top line.
Across three weeks in November, though, any progress faded. It didn’t necessarily return when Kakko recovered from his lower-body injury and rejoined Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad, either. Instead, Kakko’s spark occurred when he skated alongside both Will Cuylle and Jonny Brodzinski for the first time.
It wasn’t the role Kakko started with when Laviolette took over.
His spot on Gerard Gallant’s Kid Line has been replaced by a spot on a unit with two skaters who combined to appear in 102 NHL games entering the season.
But since Jan. 26, the first regular-season game with a Kakko-Cuylle-Brodzinski line, Kakko has scored two of his five goals and recorded four of his eight points, including an assist in each of the Rangers’ past two games entering Thursday’s matchup with the Canadiens — when they’ll aim for a sixth consecutive win.
Kakko knows he can do “a lot of other things,” he said Monday. His role doesn’t have to be one revolving around a “keep it simple” approach. But for now, with his line one of the Blueshirts’ most effective combinations, Kakko sounds content with everything.
“That’s the role right now,” Kakko told reporters following the Rangers’ 2-0 win against the Flames on Monday. “Like I said, our line [is] playing big minutes, you know.”
With the Blueshirts and Calgary still scoreless in the second period, Kakko collected the puck and skated down the boards, sliding it to his backhand as he neared the net and the Flames’ Blake Coleman dove to disrupt a potential pass.
Kakko waited. He stayed patient. He didn’t do anything with the puck until Coleman committed to his slide, and then the 23-year-old tucked toward the net. Kakko’s original shot didn’t beat Calgary goaltender Jacob Markstrom. But Cuylle kept whacking at the rebound, and eventually, the puck settled into the net.
“Every time we get on the ice,” Kakko said of his line, “I think something good’s been happening.”
They compiled three of the Rangers’ 10 high-danger chances Monday, according to Natural Stat Trick, but Kakko’s line also only allowed one of those opportunities against — the fewest among the Blueshirts’ top three units. Their expected goals (0.81) was the highest among the Rangers’ forward groups, too.
And when Cuylle’s goal emerged as the game-winner, the Kakko-Brodzinski-Cuylle line’s eight minutes of ice time together became the latest sample of everything clicking for that group.
“Jonny brings a lot of speed,” Laviolette said. “He brings offense. He brings pucks to the net. I think Kaapo does a good job of protecting pucks. Will can skate and he can bring some physicality, so there’s a good blend there. They’ve done a good job of creating.
“It’s not just the goals that they’ve scored, but they’ve been in the offensive zone and they’ve dragged lines down there and they make them play defense.”
Kakko’s latest production doesn’t have the same where-did-he-come-from connotation that Cuylle — a rookie — receives. It doesn’t include the same late-career emergence that Brodzinski’s story contains. If anything, Kakko has only inched closer to producing some of what the Rangers envisioned when they made him a top-five pick in the 2019 draft.
He tallied just two points through the first 11 games alongside Kreider and Zibanejad. Kakko added just one other goal following his demotion before he collided with Erik Johnson along the boards on Nov. 27, was helped off the ice and missed the next 21 games. His slow start had encountered another roadblock.
So even with his recent points, Kakko, at this point of the year, likely won’t come close to matching his career-best 40 from 2022-23. He likely won’t reach the 20-goal threshold for the first time, either. But with 29 regular-season games — and a possible playoff run — left before he becomes a restricted free agent for the first time, Kakko has settled into a spot on a line that keeps generating scoring chances.
It’s what the Rangers need as they search for ways to reignite their offense. And it’s what Kakko needs at this juncture of his season and career, too.
“They’ve been producing,” Laviolette said Monday of his third line. “They’ve been a real positive factor, I think, in our lineup.”