There has been a lot of discussion about Kapanen's potential. I consider him to be about the same value as where he taken last year in the draft (late first, 22nd overall). He's developed as expected over the past year, improving from 0.3 to 0.5ppg in the top Finnish league. However, he still has a ways to go if he's going to be a legit 1st liner.

Below are the top total point seasons by players under 19 in the Liiga league since 1995. Most the players in his range are 2nd or 3rd liners, so thats what I expect of young Kapanen. Some players have been listed in duplicate for their 17 and 18 year old seasons (ie. D, D+1)

I've thrown in my hand wavy assessment with the career peaks and probabilities of success of these prospects/players.

I may post a more detailed spreadsheet later. Ironically, Kapanen has very similar numbers to Roope Hintz who we could have straightup drafted at 34th anyway.

I also found another comparable from the 2014 draft that Kapanen is slightly outperforming right now: Nikolai Goldobin, who was picked 27th overall with 0.55 ppg this last season in Liiga. He was a November birthday, so he is about a 4/5th's of a year older than Kapanen and thus was too old to be included in the above table for u19s.

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I expected more from Phil's legacy.