It’s hard to know exactly what Kaapo Kakko was expecting of his first month with the Rangers, but it likely wasn’t this.
The No. 2-overall pick showed a little bit of frustration with his situation while speaking to a media outlet from his native Finland after the team’s fourth straight loss, a 3-2 defeat to the visiting Canucks on Sunday. While some things may have gotten lost in translation, it is still clear the 18-year-old has wanted to contribute more — and was hoping for more opportunity to do so.
“Hockey isn’t very much fun for me right now,” Kakko told Eastside Media, with the translation clarified by the story’s reporter, Pasi Tuominen. “Things haven’t been working out, and sometimes I feel like I could be on the ice a bit more. It would be cool to get a chance on the first line at some point. I understand that it hasn’t been realistic so far, since I haven’t really showed much.”
Kakko has shown flashes of brilliance, none brighter than his first career NHL goal on a great backhand from in close on Oct. 12. But having played with men back in Finland, and having been a key contributor to the gold medal his team won at the World Championships in May, Kakko is not satisfied with a slow learning curve in North America.
“My goal is to have a leading role,” he said. “I don’t want to hear any talk about how I’m the youngest guy and I need to be given time to get used to the style. I want to be the guy who scores goals and wins games right away.”
There have only been sporadic shifts when coach David Quinn has put Kakko up on the right side of that top line, with Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad.
Mostly, Kakko has been in a second-line role with a rotating cast of linemates, expected to start Tuesday night’s Garden match against the Coyotes alongside
Brett Howden and Chris Kreider. Quinn did move him up to the first power-play unit, and is hoping that could help get him going.
“There are so many things at this level that a 18-year-old has never been asked to do, and he’s never even thought about doing it,” Quinn said recently. “I’ve said this a lot, but it’s almost unfair for a kid like him that gets here, because the game he’s been playing to this point isn’t going to happen from here on in.”
Another contributing factor would be the fact that the Rangers had so few games at the start of the season. They played two games, and then sat for five days.
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Then they played one game, and sat for another four.
That didn’t make it any easier for Kakko to get acclimated, even if the schedule has started to normalize over the past few days.
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“The days have been a bit boring at times, since we’ve played so little. I’ve mostly been watching shows on the tablet,” Kakko said. “Now we’ll get to play properly and hopefully I can get more ice time. I think my game will start to roll better too.”
Like most teenagers, Kakko also looked at the stats to see he had only that one goal, no assists, and a minus-6 rating. He was averaging 15:21 of ice time per game, the seventh-most among forwards — although his average of 12:56 of even-strength ice was fourth-most.
“A player wants to play,” Kakko said. “You want to show that you can play well. After the first two games I was already frustrated, especially since my game wasn’t what I was expecting.”
So Kakko might be expecting more from himself, and the Rangers are hoping to watch him get better as his rookie season goes on.
“When you have that talent, he’s going to learn — because he wants to learn, and he’s committed to being a great player,” Quinn said. “There is absolutely zero reservations what we have with him. It’s just going to be a process, and it’s going to take some time.”