The 23-year-old forward has seen his ice time drop and he’s now been relegated to healthy scratch status when the roster is fully healthy.

The Jesperi Kotkaniemi 2021 offer sheet fiasco was one of the most drama filled acquisitions of a player in recent NHL history.

Partly seen as revenge for the Sebastian Aho offer sheet one year earlier, but more so the Carolina Hurricanes leveraging the tools at their disposal for a player they wanted to acquire, either way it ended up with the Canes acquiring Kotkaniemi from the Montreal Canadiens.

But ever since he was acquired, Kotkaniemi has been a hot and cold player.

The Canes first tried to form a Finnish trio with ‘KK’ on the wing with Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen, but it just didn’t take off and he was subsequently moved down to 4C.

But in year two in Carolina, Kotkaniemi got the chance at 2C.

His line with Andrei Svechnikov and Martin Necas took off, but his points didn’t show as he had just seven goals and 14 points in 41 games.

But his linemates were pacing themselves for career years, so he had to be doing something right.

However, in the second half of the season, Kotkaniemi’s numbers finally caught up with the impacts as he had 11 goals and 29 points in the next 41 games.

He looked to have finally figured it out and seemed poised to take another step heading into this season.

And by all accounts, that looked to be happening as the Finnish forward kept that ball rolling into 2023-24 with eight goals and 15 points in his first 21 games, but then things just sort of just fell off.

Kotkaniemi has had just three goals and 10 points in his next 54 games and has once again been relegated to the fourth line or even the press box.

A lot of Kotkaniemi’s early success came when he was going to the net, as six of his goals were scored from in front and it feels like he got away from that.

His physicality has also dropped as he had 20 hits in those first 21 games and now has just 33 in his last 54.

Last year he had 105 hits and this year he’s on pace for less than 60.

I’ve always felt that Kotkaniemi is at his best when he’s utilizing his size along the boards to win battles and create space but it seems that for some reason, that’s gone away.

Confidence is a hell of a drug and perhaps that’s something that’s dried up for someone who, in all senses, is still a young kid.

Analytics

It’s weird because Kotkaniemi hasn’t even been bad based on the underlying numbers. He has a 58.68 CF% (12th on the team), 50% GF (15th) and a 54.99 xGF% (14th).

He’s 50.8% in the faceoff dot, but is shooting at just 9.2%.