Although we are no longer there, at one point in the season Evander Kane (still out), Zach Hyman, and Viktor Arvidsson were all out with an injury, thus the Oilers were suffering severe injuries on the wing and some help was needed. Stan Bowman took a look at the waiver wire and saw the Blues had put Kapanen on waivers, so seeing some cheap scoring help he desperately needed with speed and PK skills, he snapped up Kapanen on waivers.
Kapanen remains with the team today, but it is worth the question for how long? After all, there are signs that Kapanen has fallen from grace as far as the coaching staff is concerned. Let's go through what those are now:
1. He has the worst +/- on the team
A team that's a Stanley Cup contender in this day and age cannot have players on their team who are bad defensively, and that's what Kapanen has become. He now sports a whopping -14, worst on the team and the only player below the -10 mark on the team, see for yourself. Making him look even worse is for many weeks now he's been playing on the fourth line, which means that by and large he has faced the softest competition the NHL can throw at him. If that's the best he can muster up after 43 games with the Oilers, that doesn't bode well for him going forward. It wasn't always this way with Kapanen. In fact, at the end of the January Daily Faceoff ranked him number five of the five best waiver pickups in the season up to that point. He was playing in the top six next to Leon Draisaitl and didn't look out of place. But he hasn't scored a goal since Jan. 23 and has had a mere two assists since then. It's no wonder that once Arvidsson and Hyman got healthy again he was moved down the lineup.
2. He's lost his spot on the PK
Scroll down to the second PK unit and take a look at where Vasily Podkolzin is right now, that's where Kapanen was playing once he got settled into the team and learned it's systems, coaching, etc. However, Podkolzin, who had a reputation for being a solid penalty killer with the Canucks, is now getting his shot on the PK with the Oilers, with where the PK is in the overall scheme of the NHL, 27th at the time of this writing, to be exact. I'm actually surprised Knoblauch didn't try this sooner.
Podkolzin is next man up and now he gets his chance to take Kapanen's minutes on special teams. Kapanen getting taken off the PK coincides with a general decline in ice time for the player, culminating in Saturday's game against Philly where he was a healthy scratch, although that only lasted one game as Hyman and Arvidsson find themselves struggling and playing with Nuge on the third line, so up went Kapanen once more to play with Connor Mcdavid and the aforementioned Podkolzin. Still, another stapling to the press box isn't far behind unless Kapanen turns around his play. Until today's game against Washington, this was Kapanen's ice time the previous three games: 8:41, 9:46, 8:36. He's lucky that Arvidsson and Hyman are struggling and playing down the lineup again, otherwise it likely would've been a second consecutive game in the pressbox for him.
3. His production has declined
I referenced this already, but although Kapanen has put up OK numbers so far in the season - 6-5-11 in the aforementioned 43 games - they're nothing really to write home about. Combine this with the fact that his defensive play has been terrible as of late, and that he's been taken off the PK and we have to ask - what role does he play on this team right now, other than placeholder to punish struggling players? I don't foresee another role for him right now. Now compare this to earlier on in the season, when from November 30 through to the end of 2024 Kapanen scored four goals - again, nothing that knocks your socks off but at least it was production. Now he doesn't even have that anymore. Besides which, if his struggles continue how many more games will he be a healthy scratch? I guarantee Knoblauch will staple him to the press box for more than one game a month.
If Kapanen wants to stay here, it's also worth nothing that he doesn't have much time to impress upon the coaching staff as there are only five games left before the trade deadline on March 7. That's not a lot of time. If I were him I'd keep my bags packed just in case and live out of a suitcase until the trade deadline passes. I hate to repeat myself but again - if he's not scoring, he's terrible defensively, he's not playing on special teams, he's not physical in a way that stands out, and he's struggling even in a fourth line role, then what exactly does he bring to the table here? Ropes are shorter on teams with high expectations, so expect GM Stan Bowman to make a decision on Kapanen sooner rather than later.