For the second consecutive night, a former Pittsburgh Penguin played hero for his current playoff team.
On Tuesday, it was forward Mikael Granlund, who recorded a hat trick for the Dallas Stars in their 3-1 Game 4 victory over the Winnipeg Jets to put his team ahead 3-1 in their second-round series.
And tonight, the heroics came from a far more unlikely source.
Ex-Penguin Kasperi Kapanen – claimed by the Edmonton Oilers off waivers on Nov. 19 – played overtime hero for the Oilers in Game 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights, earning the only tally of the game on a second-chance effort at the goal line to send Edmonton to the Western Conference Final.
Kapanen was playing in just his second game of the playoffs for the Oilers, and it was his first postseason game since 2022 with the Penguins.
Pittsburgh selected Kapanen 22nd overall in the 2014 NHL Draft, and since then, he’s been quite the journeyman. The 28-year-old forward was initially dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs as part of the deal that brought Phil Kessel to Pittsburgh in 2015, and he came back to Pittsburgh via trade in 2020.
Even though his NHL career with the Penguins got off to a good start, he couldn’t find consistency in Pittsburgh and was waived on Feb. 24, 2023. In parts of three seasons with the Penguins, Kapanen registered 29 goals and 82 points in 162 games.
He was claimed by the St. Louis Blues, who then waived him less than a year later, which is when he was claimed by the Oilers.
Edmonton – heading to its second consecutive Western Conference Final – will face the winner of the Dallas-Winnipeg series.
Ex-Penguin Records Hat Trick In Critical Game 4 WinThere are a lot of former Pittsburgh Penguins partaking in the Stanley Cup playoffs right now.
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