I have to disagree with your assessment of Kapanen. Kappy isn’t at all devoid of hockey sense but he’s a young guy learning to play at the top level where things happen sooo quickly. I believe that once he settles in, you’ll start to notice that he’s actually pretty good at reading and reacting. He’s already show those qualities on the p.k and as young guys develop, at this level, the puck starts to slow down on their stick and they start making those quick, smart plays more frequently.
And if I’m wrong...we’ll have a pretty damn good third liner with awesome speed and the ability to be absolutely lethal on penalty kill!
Once Nylander signs and is ready to play do you think Babcock will automatically put him back on Matthews line and take Ennis off it? If that does not happen people will than say he's doing it to teach Nylander a lesson about not re-signing and having it extend into the regular season.
Remember last season when he put together the line of Marleau-Kadri-Marner which he said they would try for 1 game and were successful and there was others saying why would he break them up? Obviously we know that did not happen, still I wouldn't put it past Babcock to think about doing something like that.
They were bullies in grade-8 that when they got to high-school, ended up not being so tough. 'Successful' could only be a term used against easier teams.
