Kapanen said he was late to a meeting Friday, which led to scratch
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Kasperi ghosts the Leafs at team meeting by sleeping in
Photo credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports
By Jon Steitzer
Feb 3, 2020, 11:39 ESTUpdated: Feb 3, 2020, 13:09 EST
Well we finally have some closure on why Kapanen was scratched for disciplinary reasons on Saturday night…
Kapanen said he overslept and that’s why he was late. Said there were instances with Marlies where he’d been late for practices too. Doesn’t feel this will hurt his standing with organization though.
Sheldon Keefe said #Leafs are pretty forgiving, but there was pattern in Kasperi Kapanen’s behavior dating back to before Keefe’s arrival and team felt it needed to be addressed. Also stressed he’s not making big deal of situation.
Keefe not going into nitty gritty of how late Kapanen was, etc. for practice: "I don't think that's important or necessary. I also don't think it's necessary to make this a bigger deal than it needs to be. It was very innocent. It just gets to a point where you have to respond."
Kapanen asked how he reflected on what led to being scratched: "I just overslept; I don't really know what there is to think about. Obviously I don't want my teammates to think that I'm not serious about this or whatnot, and they sat me out, and that's that."
So, I guess that’s that. Kapanen doesn’t like waking up on time and the Leafs decided to hold him accountable. We won’t be speculating on why Kapanen has issues with his alarm clock or what keeps him up at night, we’ll follow the lead of the Leafs and consider this matter dealt with.
Considering that the Leafs have had teams interested in Kapanen, the fact that they would discipline him now shows the organization’s commitment to keeping Kapanen around, as if they were seriously looking to entertain offers on him they’d probably hold off on addressing this until after the trade deadline.
There’s also the fact that this is probably isn’t anything that is going to drive any suitors away from Kapanen as well.
For now, let’s just enjoy what Kapanen brings to the roster and hope that he spent some of his time off on Saturday shopping for a better alarm clock.
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