Ville Koivunen and his agent must have been blown away the moment they realized they could cash in on what is one of the biggest head scratching contracts the NHL has seen since the likes of Pierre Engvall and Trent Frederic.
It was announced that Penguins RFA forward Ville Koivunen has signed a eight year deal with the team at an AAV of $4,000,000 per season.
What makes this make no sense is Koivunen's struggles at the NHL level to even just establish himself as a full timer NHL'er. He has 14 career NHL points in 47 games played over a two season span and looks out of place the moment he comes up from the NHL.
His success in the AHL with Wilkes is among some pro's that are noticable with All Team Rookie honours and playoff success but nothing at the NHL level.
Pittsburgh is in a massive logjam of forwards that Koivunen has nowhere near a spot on the NHL roster so for this type of contract to be signed makes absolutely no sense as the now portion of the future doesn't feature Koivunen in the cards anytime soon.
It was mentioned openly that if Ville were to have a big time summer and show signs of improvement and putting on more weight, that it would warrant signing the forward to a contract, it did not warrant this type of deal in any fashion.
Ville Koivunen, signed 8x$4M by PIT, is a young winger who's had good underlying numbers in limited minutes but very very little production in 47 NHL games. A 4.2% on-ice shooting % in his career (and 3.9% shooting %) is a big reason for that, but holy smokes that's a big bet. pic.twitter.com/6WnJWDIxkc
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) August 6, 2026
Could this be a fire-able offence? It very much could be, not only could you have another Ryan Graves type situation but you now have a basically immovable contract now that it's already officially kicked in.
This seems like an unforced error from Kyle Dubas and co. You gotta also think if Ville does become an NHL regular down the road here and produces at a medium to high level, it seems team friendly. On the initial reaction from Penguins fans, this can be viewed as insanity.
A very interesting part of this deal is the term. Dubas has signed his first and last eight year contract under the Penguins tenure to this point, with the new CBA rules kicking in. The most we have seen Kyle go for is the three to four year term at max.
This either will backfire once again on Kyle Dubas or it will age to shock the entire National Hockey League is Koivunen amounts to anything and actually breaks out.
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