NASHVILLE, Tenn. – If diagnostics were to be run on the Rangers locker room, the pH balance would lean acidic.
Just as one disgruntled player was shipped out, when captain Jacob Trouba was traded to Anaheim to end a four-plus month saga, another has emerged for understandable reasons.
Kaapo Kakko did not mince words while reflecting on his healthy scratch in St. Louis, where the Rangers still lost despite head coach Peter Laviolette’s personnel decisions.
It was the first time the 23-year-old Finn was a healthy scratch in the regular season, but the third time in his Rangers tenure after getting sat in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals in both 2022 and 2024.
“I was surprised, yeah,” said Kakko, who looked as dejected as he’s ever been since the Rangers drafted him second-overall in 2019. “I know you got to do something as a coach when you’re losing games, but I think it’s just easy to pick a young guy and boot him out. That’s how I feel, to be honest.”
There was no question Kakko felt he did not deserve to be the odd-man out. Statistics certainly support that theory.
The numbers didn’t have to say anything, however, because Kakko said it himself.
Kakko noted that he hasn’t been on the ice for many goals against this season, which is supported by the fact that he’s been on for the least amount of five-on-five goals among Rangers who had competed in every game up until Sunday’s contest.
“I have not been the worst guy,” he said. “But that was me out of the lineup.”
The night of the Blues game, Laviolette cited wanting to get fresh legs into the lineup on the second day of a back-to-back slate as the reason for sitting Kakko.
Kakko insinuated it was easier for Laviolette to boil it down to a young player instead of a veteran.
Laviolette said he’d keep his message to Kakko between the two of them, but added it was OK for No. 24 to feel the way he’s feeling.
As for the notion that it’s easier to scratch younger players than established vets, Laviolette pointed to the sitting of players like Jimmy Vesey, Reilly Smith and Jonny Brodzinski.
“There’s been older players who have sat out, as well,” Laviolette said. “The decisions that I make, they’re tough decisions. Our team, Kaapo, our team — we need to play better. We’re 3-10 in our 13 games and that’s not good enough. We need to play a better brand of hockey, all of us.”
It has been evident since the offseason that the way Rangers management has moved has rubbed the team the wrong way.
There was gripe with how president and general manager Chris Drury circumvented Barclay Goodrow’s no-trade list by putting him on waivers in a prearranged deal with the Sharks and neglecting to inform him until 15 minutes beforehand.
The publicity of how much the Rangers wanted to move on from yet another captain wasn’t taken well by Trouba or his teammates. The team folded after Drury’s league-wide trade memo was leaked.
Now, the Rangers have another player who feels spurned in Kakko.
It has made for a situation where it would perhaps be better to trade him at this point.
Kakko said the reason he was given for his scratch from Laviolette was that the veteran coach just had to make a change to the Rangers’ struggling lineup.
So did Kakko feel the need to talk to the Rangers coaching staff about what they wanted from him in his return to the lineup Tuesday night against the Predators?
“I’m not going to do that,” Kakko said. “They’re going to say if they have something to say, but I’m not going there.”
