Montreal Canadiens: Jesperi Kotkaniemi Finally Catches His Goaltender in Assists

Montreal Canadiens former general manager Marc Bergevin had a busy and fairly tumultuous offseason.

After a run to the Stanley Cup Final, injuries and free agent departures tore the roster apart as Shea Weber, Phillip Danault and Tomas Tatar all left town and Carey Price was ruled out of the start of the season with injuries.

Another player who took off in the midst of it all was Jesperi Kotkaniemi. He signed a one year and $6.1 million contract as an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes. In one of his wisest moves, Bergevin allowed Kotkaniemi to go to Carolina and took the first and third round draft picks as compensation.

Kotkaniemi was hailed as a potential two-way top six centre with great size when he was drafted third overall in 2018. Then he failed miserably to live up to the softest of expectations as he failed to put up points and he fell on the ice so often you had to wonder if he was wearing skates or crocs on his feet. Ice has never looked more slippery than when Jesperi Kotkaniemi stands on it.

The Canadiens are having a dreadful season without Kotkaniemi but a quick look at his production tells you it wouldn’t be going any better with him playing down the middle.

For example, Kotkaniemi picked up an assist on a goal for the Hurricanes in their most recent game on Sunday night. They lost the game 2-1 to the Vancouver Canucks and Kotkaniemi assisted on their lone goal. That’s good, right?

Well, it was just his third assist of the season and moves him into a tie for 15th on his team in assists.

Who is he tied with? Defensive defenceman Ian Cole and Frederik Andersen.

That’s correct. Goaltender Frederik Andersen had more assists on the season than Kotkaniemi heading into Sunday night’s game.

Not to be overly critical of a former Canadiens forward, but it was a bit fo lucky bounce that even led to the assist. Kotkaniemi gets to a loose puck in the defensive zone and instead of making a quick pass to the middle where Seth Jarvis is busting out of the zone, Kotkaniemi flubs the puck up the boards and is fortunate to have it bounce over the defenders stick. Jarvis then picks it up and makes a nice pass to Martin Necas who scores a beauty on the backhand.

Kotkaniemi’s first assist of the season, back on October 23rd was by far his nicest. He makes an awkward ten foot pass directly behind him on the power play to Brett Pesce who fires the puck on net. Jordan Staal jumps on the rebound and scores.

His second assist of the year was a play where he had all day and did everything he could to throw the puck away. He is standing at the red line with the puck on his stick and defenceman Tony DeAngelo is cruising through centre looking for a pass. Luckily he was paying close attention because Kotkaniemi fired a brutal pass into his feet, but DeAngelo was able to get control with his skates before flying into the offensive zone. He makes a great cross-ice pass to Steven Lorentz who finds the back of the net with a nifty little deke to the forehand.

There you have it. All three of Jesperi Kotkaniemi’s assist this season and you will notice not a single one of them is a primary assist. A centre that can’t setup a goal is not a good thing. I mean, even Frederik Andersen has a primary assist this season and he did it in overtime… of course, Andersen gets a lot more ice time than Kotkaniemi in overtime.

Hurricanes fans are busy trying to convince themselves how great Kotkaniemi will be soon. We did the same thing in Montreal for a while but as soon as Canadiens fans saw the number on the offer sheet, they were more than happy to let him go.

Maybe it is the fact he can’t stand up or possibly that he is a worse setup man than his own goaltender. Whatever it is, there is no way he is earning that $6.1 million cap hit this season.