Well, this one came out of no where. The Penguins announced today that Ville Koivunen has been re-signed to an eight year contract with a $4.0 million annual average value.
From the team:
The Pittsburgh Penguins have re-signed restricted free agent forward Ville Koivunen to an eight-year contract, it was announced today by President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Kyle Dubas.
The contract runs
through the 2033-34 season and carries an average annual value of $4 million.
Koivunen, 23, spent the 2025-26 season split between Pittsburgh and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (AHL). With Pittsburgh, he notched seven points (2G-5A) in 39 games and also had 13 goals and 28 assists for 41 points in 34 games with WBS. He led the WBS Penguins in assists (28), ranked second in points (41) and had the highest points-per-game average on the team (1.21). Koivunen was named AHL Player of the Month for February after notching 16 points (6G-10A) in 11 games. In the Calder Cup Playoffs, he was tied for second on WBS with nine points (4G-5A) in 15 games, helping them reach the Conference Finals.
The 6-foot, 184-pound forward has recorded 14 points (2G-12A) in 47 games across parts of two seasons in the NHL with Pittsburgh. In the AHL, Koivunen has 98 points (35G-63A) in 109 career games, split between Chicago and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He also notched 13 points (5G-8A) in 19 career Calder Cup playoff games. He was named to the 2025 AHL All-Rookie Team, and was the January 2025 AHL Rookie of the Month.
Prior to coming to North America, Koivunen spent three seasons with Kärpät in Liiga, the top professional league in Finland, from 2021-24. The forward had 113 points (45G-68A) in 164 career games with Kärpät which was the highest point total by a player on the team in that span.
The Oulu, Finland native has represented his home country at various tournaments in his career. He skated in the 2021 World Under-18 Championship and twice at the World Junior Championship in 2022, where he helped his team win a silver medal, and 2023 where he served as an alternate captain of Team Finland.
There’s certainly a lot to digest with this one. Koivunen struggled to find the scoresheet in the NHL in 2025-26, scoring only two goals and adding seven assists in 39 games. His production was much better at the AHL level with 41 points in 34 games. Below the stats, Koivunen did shine in territorial play, posting some of the best puck possession numbers on the team last year.
That left questions about where Koivunen, 23, might fit in the future.
This contract goes to answer some of that. The Penguins have made a big bet that Koivunen will be a part of their future. As of September 16, when the new CBA officially kicks in, the max length of a contract is seven years, they decided to make the longest bet still possible it will happen.
On one hand, that could pay off. James Mirtle at The Athletic speculated that the revenue boom in the NHL could lead to a $150-160 million upper limit of the salary cap in 2031-32. Koivunen will still be on that contract during those latter years of expected massive growth in the cap and would be coming in at as low as 2.5% of the cap total.
From that perspective, having a skilled winger on a potential bargain could be beneficial for the Pens down the road. They certainly have enough cap space in the next few years where even if Koivunen doesn’t amount to a $4 million player that he won’t hand-cuff their situation or prevent any other moves that they may wish to make.
On the other hand, this is a complete departure of how the Pens have been building. In recent years Pittsburgh haggled with impending restricted free agents like Connor Dewar and Philip Tomasino over a few hundred thousands dollars — and even let them become unrestricted free agents. To hand out eight years at a massive salary increase is a big change from what has been established.
Prior to last week’s Tommy Novak contract extension last week, the Pens had no forwards under contract for the 2029-30 season, and only three (Novak, Egor Chinakhov and Blake Lizotte) under contract for 2028-29. The team had moved into a strong direction to not give out much term to players that they’ve signed in the past few years.
Perhaps they didn’t have any candidates to go long with. Koivunen didn’t seem like a strong one either, but the team clearly thinks this player has a lot of achievable upside and will help them for years. It’s a bold bet that could have positive or negative consequences. Whether this juice will be worth the squeeze will be a very interesting area to track in the years to come.
