What If The Ville Koivunen Contract Works Out?

Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas took a page from the Tampa Bay Rays’ playbook by signing forward Ville Koivunen to an eight-year, $32MM extension this past summer. As the Rays have done for years, Dubas locked up an unproven player with a big extension at a surprising price. It’s worked for the Rays for decades, but the NHL rarely does it, and Dubas could pioneer it with Koivunen. However, if it doesn’t work, Dubas will have a pricey gamble on his hands. But if it does, will it change how other GMs operate?

It will be a long time before we know whether his deal will give Pittsburgh value, and two weeks ago it looked like a disaster. But after a couple of solid games, including an overtime winner against Nashville on Saturday night, Koivunen is starting to show some upside.

Pittsburgh’s signing of Koivunen was peculiar for several reasons, including the timing, as it came after a relatively quiet summer in which Dubas swung and missed on nearly every trade and free-agent target. The signing almost felt like a panic reaction from Dubas, who may have realized he couldn’t acquire young top-six talent and pivoted to locking in a player with top-six potential. Pundits universally panned the signing and largely mocked it, unable to believe Pittsburgh would lock up a player to a max-term deal who had just two goals and five assists in 39 NHL games last season. However, Koivunen was effective in the AHL, posting 41 points in 34 games and showing swagger that made him a pest in his top-six role. Dubas described the contract as a bet on Koivunen’s potential, which, in a vacuum, made sense given the NHL’s changing economic climate.

Realistically, the contract has three potential outcomes. First, the deal works out well for Pittsburgh, and more teams start signing prospects to long-term extensions before they have much NHL experience. Second, it becomes a cautionary tale; third, Koivunen becomes an NHL player in Pittsburgh’s bottom six, with a result that’s just sort of okay for both sides.

If the Koivunen deal ends up being a massive discount, it would almost certainly set off a chain reaction in which teams sign high-upside middle prospects, taking lower AAV deals in exchange for security, as Koivunen has done. Pittsburgh is hardly the first team to sign a prospect to a long-term deal, but they may be the first to sign a borderline AHL player. Sure, Washington signed Ryan Leonard to a long-term deal, and Anaheim inked Tristan Luneau to one as well, but both are NHL players, while Koivunen entered this year as a tweener. Signing a player like that to an eight-year deal was a massive gamble, but the NHL is a copycat league, and if it works, other teams will most certainly try it rather than signing a prospect to a short bridge deal. The goal of such a move is to buy out prime free-agent seasons at a manageable cap hit, hoping the player hits and sticks in the NHL. The risk to the team would be a concern, but if Koivunen shows enough upside, teams will try to hit on a player too. Teams with a history of strong scouting could be particularly interested in that type of arrangement if they strongly believe in their own internal player projections.

If Koivunen falters, the contract could serve as a cautionary tale, discouraging other teams from making the same bet. While one deal isn’t likely to establish a trend, it will give other GMs pause when considering handing big long-term money to borderline AHLers with some upside. But most GMs wouldn’t make a bet like this because they aren’t in the same situation as Kyle Dubas. Most teams don’t try to do what Dubas is doing: remain competitive with an old core while building for the future. That mandate has led to some peculiar moves for Pittsburgh, some that worked and some that didn’t.

The third outcome of the Koivunen contract is that he becomes a full-time bottom-six NHL depth scorer. This feels like a pretty good bet given Koivunen’s track record so far, and it’s probably what Pittsburgh envisioned for the player. It wouldn’t be the worst outcome for the Penguins, but it would likely be on the low end of their internal projections for Koivunen. Pittsburgh has limited evidence that Koivunen is a sure-fire NHL player, and AHL production doesn’t guarantee success either. Prospects can show flashes of being an NHLer and then plateau, struggle with the NHL pace, or struggle with the team’s defensive structure. That’s part of the downside the Penguins had to consider when signing Koivunen, and they ultimately accepted the risk.

So what determines whether the experiment worked? We’ll know in the next two years whether it was worth it for Pittsburgh. Ultimately, the contract will be a success if Koivunen becomes a top-nine forward who can provide depth scoring for the Penguins throughout the deal. Anything beyond that would be the icing on the cake for Pittsburgh. If Koivunen falls short or remains a borderline NHLer, the deal will be a bust, and the Penguins might be forced to buy out the final six years of the contract at 1/3 the salary, resulting in a 12-year buyout.

Thanks to the relatively modest AAV ($4MM), Koivunen doesn’t need to become a star for the deal to work. If it does, the Penguins will have given teams another model for signing young players to bargain contracts. It’s unlikely many teams would give these young, unproven players long-term deals, but at the very least, the Pittsburgh contract to Koivunen could change how teams value unproven young forwards.