Career
He played 12 National Hockey League seasons for the Hartford Whalers, Carolina Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers. He is the majority owner and general manager of KalPa. Kapanen"s son, Kasperi Kapanen plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Kapanen was drafted 87th overall in the 1995 National Hockey League Entry Draft by the Hartford Whalers.
His first National Hockey League season was in 1995-1996, when he played 35 games with Hartford. The Whalers relocated to become the Carolina Hurricanes following the 1996-1997 season and Kapanen averaged 24 goals and 35 assists in his next five seasons with Carolina.
His best season was in 2001-2002 when he scored 27 goals and 42 assists for 69 points. He was selected twice for the National Hockey League All Star Game (2000, 2002), winning the Individual event for "the Fastest skater" on both occasions.
On February 7, 2003, Kapanen was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers along with Ryan Bast for Pavel Brendl and Bruno Saint Jacques.
In his first two seasons with Philadelphia, Kapanen played 31 playoff games, scoring 17 points. Kapanen has played three times for Finland at the Winter Olympics. In 18 Olympic games he scored 2 goals and 3 assists for 5 points.
In the National Hockey League, Kapanen has played 831 regular season games, scoring 189 goals and 269 assists for 458 points.
He has also played in 87 playoff games, scoring 13 goals and 22 assists for 35 points. Since 2003, Kapanen has also been the majority owner of the Finnish hockey team KalPa Kuopio, the same club that gave him his start as a professional.
One of the minority owners is Kimmo Timonen who in 2007 became Kapanen"s teammate on the Flyers. Following the 2007-2008 season, Kapanen announced that he was retiring from the National Hockey League and he would be returning to Finland to play for KalPa.
He retired as a player after the 2009-2010 season.
On April 7, 2011, Kapanen announced that he would be doing a comeback as a player in KalPa, playing on a two year contract. Tied a record for scoring two consecutive overtime goals in two consecutive games. (Since broken by Andrew Cogliano)
14.039 seconds.
Fastest Manitoba on ice awarded when he completed a lap around an National Hockey League rink in 12.7 seconds.