The Pittsburgh Penguins made a major investment in their group of forwards Thursday, signing young winger Ville Koivunen to an eight-year contract extension. Koivunen has little NHL experience, but the Pens made a calculated gamble with his new deal. Will we see this type of gamble from more teams?
Kyle Dubas is continuing to plan for the next generation of Pittsburgh Penguins hockey.
As the NHL season approaches, the GM locked up one of his promising young forwards, Ville Koivunen, to an eight-year, $32-million extension on Thursday.
The 23-year-old generated 41 points in 34 AHL games this past season. The year prior, he put up 35 assists and 56 points in 63 AHL games. He also combined for 14 points in his 47 appearances in the NHL over the past two seasons.
It's hard to argue that Koivunen has earned this contract. Dubas is clearly gambling on a player who has had great AHL success, but hasn’t found a way to translate it to the NHL level yet.
As the league’s cap ceiling continues to rise exponentially, Koivunen’s contract has very little chance of blowing up in Dubas' face. This also opens up the possibility for Koivunen’s new extension to become one of the league’s better bargains.
Two or three years from now, Koivunen’s $4-million salary will be closer to the league-minimum. If they’re getting excellent production out of him, Penguins fans will be raving about this contract for the next eight years.
It’s still far too soon to make the ultimate judgement on this player, but the Penguins have made a strategic investment in Koivunen. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are nearing the end of their Hall-of-Fame careers, and there has to be a foundation of young players for the future.
Even if things go downhill, the Penguins can explore a buyout for Koivunen now that he is a cost-certain asset. That outcome would carry some pain in terms of the length, but would cost them next to nothing against the cap.
Beyond this extension, Dubas has done very well in terms of managing his cap space to eventually position his team to make major acquisitions.
The Penguins still have approximately $10.9-million in cap space as they enter the season, and that number is going to skyrocket to $63-million next summer. If Crosby, Malkin and Erik Karlsson end up returning for 2027-28 that total will obviously shrink significantly, but the team's cap sheet is pretty clean right now.
If Dubas continues to make long-term additions with low financial risk, the more money the Penguins are going to have to pursue experienced, above-average players.
Koivunen may turn out to be a long-term puzzle piece. But if he doesn’t work out as hoped, the Pens can jettison him with very little punitive cost to the organization. Koivunen will have every chance to succeed – and if he does turn into a valuable contributor, this new contract will be held high by Dubas as an example of his savvy investments in his players.
Dubas still needs a lot of young players to develop in order to adequately, eventually replace his generational players. But the Koivunen contract gamble is something we’re going to see just about every NHL team.
As young players work their way into being regular NHLers, their teams will want them signed long-term to low-cost contracts.
For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.
