The Canadiens may be heading into next season with the same center group they leaned on for long stretches last year, and that puts Oliver Kapanen right back in the spotlight.
At the moment, Montreal does not appear to be landing an established second-line centre this offseason. The free-agent pool never offered much in the way of big-name help, and the trade chatter around centres has been quiet.
Dylan Larkin remains the biggest name still out there, but the Canadiens are not on his trade list. With plenty of time still to go before the start of the 2026-27 season, there is a real chance the Canadiens open next season with Nick Suzuki, Oliver Kapanen, Phillip Danault, and Jake Evans again forming the middle of the ice.
That would keep Kapanen in the role he held for much of last season, even though he was eventually out of the lineup once the playoffs arrived. That absence sparked plenty of talk about Montreal needing a true second-line centre, but the picture looks different now.
Michael Hage is headed back to Michigan, and with no major additions so far, Kapanen could easily be the guy starting next season in that spot. The Canadiens got a much better version of him last year than they did in his first NHL look, but there is still another level he has to find if he is going to hold that job for real.
Kapanen’s first taste of Montreal came in 2024-25, when he played 12 games and picked up one assist before being loaned to Timra IK in Sweden. That move paid off for him.
He put up 15 goals and 20 assists in 36 games there, then came back to the Canadiens and added another assist in six more games. Even with that success overseas, the offense did not carry over right away in the NHL.
Last season was his rookie year, and he arrived with modest expectations after what he had shown the year before. Then he opened some eyes.
After going scoreless in his first 18 career games, he suddenly scored three goals in the first five games of the season. A lot of that had to do with where he was playing and who he was playing with.
In his first NHL stint, he was lower in the lineup. This past season, he spent most of his time on the second line with another rookie, Ivan Demidov, and the two of them were near the top of the rookie scoring race for much of the year.
Demidov was supposed to be the headline act. Kapanen became part of the surprise.
Their game reached another gear once Juraj Slafkovsky joined them during a stretch when the Canadiens were dealing with injuries to several key players. For a long run, that trio - Slafkovsky, Kapanen, and Demidov - was Montreal’s most reliable line.
The “Kid Line” was one of the better offensive units in the league, ranking 29th out of 226 qualified forward lines in expected goals for at 16.1.
That kind of setup mattered for Kapanen. Playing with that much skill around him meant he did not have to create everything himself, which is exactly what would have been asked of him in a bottom-six role. Even so, his season was a clear success overall: 22 goals, second among rookies, and 15 assists in 82 games.
But the finish was rough. Like a lot of rookies, he seemed to wear down as the season went along.
Kapanen had never played more than 55 games in a season before, when he was with KalPa Kuopio in Finland, and the jump in workload showed. He did not score in the final 10 games of the regular season, and the skid carried into the playoffs.
He dressed for the first two games of the Tampa Bay Lightning series, then sat as a healthy scratch for most of Montreal’s postseason run, appearing in only three more games.
That playoff disappearance made Montreal’s need for help look obvious at the time. But with July here and the Canadiens still sitting on their hands, the reality is that Kapanen may be the one they trust again. The trade market has also thinned out after Vincent Trochek and Mason McTavish already moved, which only adds to the possibility that Kapanen starts next season back in the second-line centre role.
Fans may be frustrated with how his year ended, but Kapanen already showed he can force people to rethink their expectations. He is not a flashy player, but he has a knack for getting to the right spots and finishing off rebounds. The Canadiens may be betting that the late-season drop was fatigue, not a sign that he cannot handle the job.
He still has plenty of work ahead of him before anyone can call him a true second-line centre. Even so, one bad finish should not be enough for Montreal to move on from him yet.
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