Category: NHL

If you had any doubts as to whether or not the Pittsburgh Penguins believe in Ville Koivunen, you can forget about it.

At least for now.

The Penguins showed everybody on Thursday morning that they do, in fact, believe in Koivunen, at least to some degree, by signing him an eight-year, $32 million contract extension with a $4 million salary cap number per season.

It’s a stunning bet that comes with some serious sticker shock.

It’s a max-term deal for a guy that’s played less than 50 games in the NHL and has scored only two goals.

You didn’t have that on your radar today. Nobody did. It is one of those deals where I had to read the press release five times and check the social media account with intense scrutiny to make sure it was real before I commented on it. Remember back when fake Twitter accounts posting fake trades and signings were a thing? The “Perguins” acquired every player in the NHL one summer.

I thought this was the Perguins.

But, no, it was in fact the actual Pittsburgh Penguins, and it is in fact a real contract.

So let’s try to make some sense of this.

It’s a gamble. That’s it. They are gambling that Koivunen realizes his potential, becomes an NHL regular, and slots somewhere into the middle of the lineup (or higher). If he does, it would become an insanely team-friendly contract in the future under the rising cap.

A $4 million cap-hit in 2026-27 would be the equivalent to a $3.3 million contract under the $88 million cap from a couple of years ago.

Under next year’s $113 million cap it would be the equivalent of a $3.1 million deal.

Assuming the cap goes up into the $120 million range after that, and every year beyond that, the value keeps going on that same trajectory. I don’t think you’re prepared for how small a $4 million cap hit is going to be in the future.

Honestly, the dollar amount isn’t even close to the main concern. Not now, and probably not even in the future. Not only because of the cap around the league and the way it is climbing, but also because the Penguins have almost nobody signed long-term. I said this about the Tommy Novak deal as well; this team has NOBODY signed. That doesn’t mean you just throw money at anybody, but at some point you’re going to have to fill out a roster and pay somebody. Even if Koivunen busts a $4 million cap hit in six or seven years is going to be on the low end of NHL contracts.

Koivuen also doesn’t need to be a top-line player for this contract to pay for itself long-term. I honestly think everybody is setting too high of a bar for what Koivunen has to be for this to be worth it. Your brain is still instinctively working on a sub-$90 million salary cap from the past two decades.

He really just needs to be a capable middle-six player.

If he becomes anything more than that, it’s a steal.

His ability to actually become even THAT level of player, as well as the term itself, are the big parts of the gamble.

In some ways, I can kind of see why the Penguins have that level of faith in Koivunen.

There is obvious talent. He is still only 23 years old. He has been wildly productive in the American Hockey League. He is also coming off a season where he posted some of the best underlying and possession-metrics in the league. And that is not an exaggeration or hyperbole.

There were 397 forwards that played at least 450 minutes in the NHL this season.

Koivunen ranked 16th in that group in expected goal share, 25th in total shot attempt share, 11th in scoring chance share, 26th in high-danger scoring chance share and 84th in expected goals per 60 minutes.

He played a lot of sheltered minutes in terms of offensive zone starts, but he didn’t really have the highest quality linemates at times. Even so, when he was on the ice the puck was typically in the offensive zone and they were typically out-chancing their opponents.

It just never translated into actual goals. For him, or the team. And that became frustrating. But it’s also still a ridiculously small sample size.

The biggest thing I kept going back to is he always just seemed to be a half-second slow in releasing his shot. There were countless times he had himself in a good spot, but ended up having his shot blocked or deflected away because he couldn’t get it off in time. Maybe that’s a red flag for his ability to turn his AHL production into NHL production.

But there is still something to be said for being in the right spots, and in potential scoring spots.

Honestly, given that profile, his age, talent and the numbers, he is probably the exact type of player the Penguins would be looking to trade for if he played on another team. He fits that profile of a talented player with strong underlyings that simply hasn’t put everything together to produce results.

In this case the Penguins are not gambling future draft picks, they are gambling future salary cap space.

I am not sure where Koivunen slots in this season. I am not sure if there is another trade to happen that moves out a forward to open a more secure roster spot for him. I also don’t know how his career is going to develop, if he will keep posting great underlying numbers, or if it will turn into actual, tangible production. The Penguins seem to at least have some level of faith that he is going to take some sort of a step forward, if not this season, than in the seasons ahead.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Penguins made a significant investment in their future on Thursday, signing forward Ville Koivunen to an eight-year contract worth $4 million annually.

Koivunen, 23, was a restricted free agent. The deal signals Koivunen is an important part of the franchise as it navigates the twilight of the careers of icons Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.

The Finnish-born Koivunen, acquired in a March 2024 trade with Carolina that sent Jake Guentzel to the Hurricanes, had two goals and five assists in 39 games with Pittsburgh during the 2025-26 season.

Koivunen excelled in the playoffs for Wilkes-Barre, Pittsburgh's American Hockey League affiliate, collecting four goals and five assists in nine games to help the club to the conference finals.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL

The Pittsburgh Penguins have re-signed Ville Koivunen to a massive contract. 

They announced on Thursday that Koivunen has agreed to an eight-year deal with an average annual value of $4 million. Koivunen was the final restricted free agent for the Penguins to sign. 

The Penguins have re-signed restricted free agent forward Ville Koivunen to an eight-year contract.

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) August 6, 2026

It's a contract that nobody saw coming, especially after finishing the 2025-26 season with only two goals and seven points in 39 games. He also spent time with the AHL's Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, compiling 13 goals and 41 points in 34 games. 

He plays super well in the AHL, but hasn't been able to translate that play to the NHL. The Penguins are obviously betting that he will during this deal and that he'll be a big part of their future. 

His underlying metrics have been strong, but the production hasn't been there. He'll have an opportunity to change that this season, especially if he makes the team out of training camp. 

Koivunen was acquired from the Carolina Hurricanes in the Jake Guentzel trade back in 2024. He has compiled two goals and 14 points in 47 NHL games.

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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.

The Penguins have re-signed restricted free agent forward Ville Koivunen to an eight-year contract.

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) August 6, 2026

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.

The Pittsburgh Penguins just dropped a stunning contract on the NHL, signing restricted free agent Ville Koivunen to an eight-year, $32 million contract ($4 million AAV).

That sound you may hear is the cash register for Emil Heineman and Simon Holmstrom's eventual contract extensions next summer, as they're both set to become RFAs following the end of the 2026-27 season.

If the New York Islanders had plans on extending both long-term, they both just got undoubtedly more expensive.

Koivunen, 23, played 39 NHL games this past season, and has a total of 47 career NHL games.

In 2025-26, he posted two goals and seven points. In his career, he has just five more assists, a total line of 47 GP, 2G, 10A, 12Pts.

It's a massive, massive contract from the Penguins. While the cap is rising exponentially and indefinitely, given an unproven RFA eight years and a solid enough cap hit is a big bet on the player's future.

Koivunen's now signed until he's age 31, and if he hits as a solid middle-six forward, it'll age fantastic for Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, for the Islanders, it's not the best of news. Heineman, 24, just potted 22 goals and 31 points this year. Holmstrom's posted 39 goals and 86 points in the last two seasons.

Heineman on a long-term contract could point right to that Koivunen deal and command at least another $1.5-2 million annually on an eight-year deal, minimum. If the Islanders wait, and Heineman posts another 20+ goal season while becoming more well-rounded offensively, it could become even more expensive.

Holmstrom, meanwhile, has excelled at both even strength and on the penalty kill. His biggest deficiency has been early-season consistency. If and when Holmstrom puts that together, he's an easy 25+ goal, 55-60+ point player who can play in all situations.

A long-term contract for that will cost double to two-and-a-half times what Koivunen just signed for.

While Koivunen is not the best comparable for either player, what he did just do is raise the bar entirely for RFA forwards.

Heineman and Holmstrom are better players than Koivunen, and thus will command a higher salary AAV if they signed today.

 

The Utah Mammoth’s decision to part ways with Maksymilian Szuber this summer opened the door for the young defenseman to find a new opportunity in Montreal.

That opportunity became official Monday, with the Canadiens announcing that they had reached an agreement with Szuber on a one-year, two-way contract for the 2026-27 season.

According to PuckPedia, the deal carries an $850,000 NHL cap hit. Szuber will earn $135,000 at the AHL level and is guaranteed at least $175,000 regardless of where he spends the season.

For Utah, the signing puts a bow on the next chapter for a defenseman who spent the past three seasons within the organization after originally joining the franchise when it was still based in Arizona.

The 23-year-old Szuber was selected by the Arizona Coyotes in the sixth round of the 2022 NHL Draft, going 163rd overall. The 6-foot-3, left-shot defenseman developed in Germany with EHC Munich before making the jump to North America in 2023.

He ultimately became a dependable presence for the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners, appearing in exactly 200 regular-season games over three seasons. During that span, Szuber produced 25 goals and 62 assists for 87 points while accumulating 162 penalty minutes.

His NHL experience, however, remained limited to a single appearance with Arizona during the 2023-24 season.

Szuber showed enough promise to remain part of the organization’s defensive depth, but the Mammoth’s blue-line picture became increasingly crowded. The emergence of prospects such as Dmitri Simashev and Maveric Lamoureux eventually pushed Szuber further down the organizational depth chart.

That ultimately contributed to his departure from Utah.

The Mammoth traded Szuber to the Montreal Canadiens in June, receiving the rights to forward Joshua Roy in return. Roy, 22, became the centerpiece of the deal from Utah’s perspective as the organization continued reshaping its prospect pool.

Now, Szuber gets a fresh opportunity with Montreal.

The Canadiens are coming off a season in which they advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference Final, and their blue-line competition figures to be intense heading into training camp. Szuber will have to fight for an opportunity at the NHL level, but his size, left-handed shot and experience in the AHL give him a legitimate foundation to build upon.

His new contract also gives him some financial security while providing Montreal with a low-cost option capable of providing organizational depth.

For Utah, meanwhile, Szuber’s signing is another reminder of how quickly the Mammoth’s roster and prospect landscape continues to evolve. A player who spent three years developing within the organization is now moving on, while the asset acquired in his departure gives Utah another young piece to evaluate moving forward.

Montreal Canadiens forward Oliver Kapanen had a solid 2025-26 season for the Original Six club. In 82 games this past campaign, he posted 22 goals, 15 assists, and 37 points. While he has held off the scoresheet in his seven playoff appearances for Montreal, it was still a successful year for the skilled forward.

Now, Kapanen will be looking to continue to develop in the right direction next season. If he can take his offensive game to a new level and continue to build on his two-way play, he could cement himself as a very important part of the Canadiens' forward group.

When noting that Kapanen is still just 23 years old and only really getting his NHL career started, there is no question that he has the potential to hit a new level for the Canadiens in 2026-27. The young center has a lot of upside, and it would be significant for the Canadiens if he can improve further next season. 

It is going to be interesting to see what kind of season Kapanen can put together for the Canadiens in 2026-27. Due to his high potential, it is clear that he is a young forward who fans should be watching extra closely. 

Marko Daňo, an Austrian-born Slovak, was drafted by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round, 27th overall, at the 2013 NHL Entry Draft. 

Daňo made his NHL debut in 2014 and played 35 games. He scored 8 goals, totaled 21 points, and was a plus-12 in his first NHL season. It seemed that Marko Daňo had arrived and was ready to be a good player for Columbus. That was until the following season. 

On June 30, 2015, before he even started his sophomore season, he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks along with Artem Anisimov, Jeremy Morin, Corey Tropp, and Columbus' 4th-round pick in exchange for Brandon Saad, Michael Paliotta, and Alex Broadhurst. He ended his time in Chicago by totaling 2 points in 13 games. 

Less than one year later, Daňo was traded again, this time to the Winnipeg Jets. He played a total of 82 games over three seasons with the Jets, scoring 10 goals and netting 22 points. 

Winnipeg would waive him in October of 2018, when he was then claimed by Colorado. Just over a month later, the Avs put him on waivers again, where he would be claimed by Winnipeg. 

In 2019, he was not tendered an offer by the Jets. He signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Blue Jackets on August 8th. He played three games for Columbus that season but spent most of his time in Cleveland. He played 46 games for the Monsters, scored 4 goals, and totaled 19 points. 

In his AHL career, he played in 199 games and had 102 points. During his time playing for the Springfield Falcons, which was the CBJ's AHL team in 2014 & 2015, as well as the Cleveland Monsters, Daňo scored 17 goals and had 44 total points. 

Daňo left for Europe in 2021, where he remains to this day. He has played for HC Oceláři Třinec since 2021 and has also played for Czechia in the Olympics and World Cup. 

There are 56 days left until opening night at NWA, and Marko Daňo could've been one of those players who would've done well in Columbus for years. He was traded for Brandon Saad, who was then traded back to Chicago for Artemi Panarin a few years later. So, in the end, the deal sending Daňo to Chicago was definitely worth it. 

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The Buffalo Sabres have been considered to have one of the deepest prospect pools in the NHL, which is in part due to them selecting high in recent drafts because of their not qualifying for the playoffs. The Sabres have displayed an eye for talent, and the organization’s developmental model has begun to yield results, with 2023 first rounder Zach Benson making an impact in the playoffs, and 2024 top pick Konsta Helenius appearing as one of the AHL’s top prospects the last two seasons.  

Leading up to the opening of training camp in mid-September, we will look at the club's top 40 prospects. These players are all 25 years old or younger, whose rights are currently held by the Sabres or are on AHL or NHL deals, and have played less than 82 NHL games. 

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32. Sean Keohane - D (Harvard - NCAA)

Keohane was selected in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL Draft and is a long-range prospect with impressive physical tools. A native of the Boston area, the blueliner played at Dexter Southfield Prep in Massachusetts and was slated to play a full season in the USHL with Tri-City before heading to Harvard, but after 16 games, he shifted to West Kelowna in the BCHL, where he posted 14 points (6 goals, 8 assists) in 25 games.

Elite Prospects indicates that Keohane “flashes nuanced defensive skating, allowing him to push an absurd amount of aggression defending the rush. He's physical, jumping off the net front to punish attackers on the end boards and tries to clog lanes with anticipation-based reads, pushing nastiness after the whistle.”

The 6’4”, 205 lb. defenseman had two assists in 11 games for Harvard as a freshman and in an increased role with the Crimson last season, he posted three points (2 goals, 1 assist) in 34 games. The 21-year-old has holes in his game at both ends of the ice that could be honed with another two years at Harvard, which has traditionally done a good job at developing prospects, but those hopes may have taken a hit after head coach Ted Donato departed for an NHL job with New Jersey. 

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We continue our look at some over/unders for the 2026-27 Pittsburgh Penguins, and today we turn our attention to their secondary players. The players on that list include: Egor Chinakhov, Rickard Rakell, Tommy Novak, Elmer Soderblom and Samuel Girard. They are not new players, they are not among the Penguins’ youngest players, they are not quite depth players, and they are not the Penguins’ top core players. But they are still players that should be expected to play a significant role and produce this season.

Here is a quick look at the other over/unders we have looked at so far:

• Over/unders for Ben Kindel and the Penguins other young players for 2026-27
• Over/unders for Nicholas Robertson and the Penguins’ newest players 2026-27

Let’s get into today’s players and potential numbers.

Egor Chinakhov: Over/under 28.5 goals

There were a lot of big (and surprising) developments for the 2025-26 Penguins, and one of the most significant was the in-season acquisition of Egor Chinakhov from the Columbus Blue Jackets. It was not only his acquisition that made a difference, it was also the way that he arrived and immediately started to reach his full potential as a player, both with and without the puck. He was one of their best and most impactful players in the second half of the season, and looked like the player Columbus had always hoped he could be.

He finished the season with a career-high 21 goals and 42 total points between the two teams, including 18 goals and 36 total points in his 43 games with the Penguins.

Those numbers with the Penguins come out to a 34-goal, 68-point pace over 82 games.

That is first-line production, and when you add in how improved he was defensively he looked like a potential star.

The question is what is he going to do over a full-season?

Was that performance with the Penguins a sign of what he can, and will, be? Or was it simply a hot streak where everything clicked for a talented, but still inconsistent player for a brief period of time?

I think the answer to that question resides somewhere in the middle.

He’s clearly better than he showed in Columbus, and very likely needed a fresh start and a different environment with different voices leading him to start reaching that potential.

But I also don’t know if I expect him to spend a full season shooting over 17 percent. His shot is objectively great, but there might be some regression that comes there. I could see a situation unfolding where he might be the same player, or perhaps even improve, while not scoring goals at the exact same pace as he did a year ago with the Penguins.

With that said, 28.5 seems like a good target line. It’s still very good. It’s still very productive. But it might just be a little bit of a slower pace.

Rickard Rakell: Over/under 30.5 goals

I feel like Rickard Rakell’s time with the Penguins has been a little underappreciated. He had one down year in 2023-24, but other than that has scored like a top-line player and owns what has become a pretty team-friendly contract under the rising salary cap.

He’s good. He is one of the few positive things that can be associated with the Ron Hextall era.

He also showed this past season he can be pretty versatile and held his own at center when the Penguins needed it.

In his four seasons with the Penguins his 82-game goal paces have been 28, 17.5, 35 and 32.8. That’s pretty good, and it’s not hard to spot the outlier. His past two seasons have been outstanding from an offensive perspective, and especially as a finisher.

He is going to be 33 years old this season, so there is a chance he starts to slow down, but after scoring at a 32-goal pace in back-to-back seasons I am not sure he is going to just suddenly fall off the map.

The big thing that might limit him is the potential for injury as he has missed at least 10 games in two of the past four years. But if he stays healthy? Thirty goals should definitely be on the table.

Tommy Novak: Over/under 15 minutes of ice-time per game

At this point we have a pretty good idea of what Novak is as a player. He’s a very capable middle-six forward that can play a variety of roles up and down the lineup, and is probably going to score you between 15-20 goals and 40-45 points.

He is talented, but a little inconsistent.

He has obvious skill, but sometimes it leaves you wanting more.

He is a good player, but there is a very obvious ceiling on what he is.

The Penguins also seem to really like him, as evidence by the fact he just a received a three-year contract extension.

For his over/under I am focussing more on role and usage than production, and I am wondering if he takes on a bigger role than before.

For his career he has averaged 13:45 of ice-time per game.

With the Penguins, that number has gone up a little to 14:15 per game.

But over the last two months of the 2025-26 season, and into the playoffs, his ice-time started to reach levels it has never reached at any point of his career, topping 16 minutes per game.

Prior to those two months to close out the 2025-26 season, he only had three other months in his NHL career where he averaged more than 15 minutes per game, and one of those months came in a month where he played just five games.

With Evgeni Malkin now looking like more of a winger than a center, and with Ben Kindel still only being 19 years old, I wonder if we see Novak take on a more traditional second-line center role from the start of the season and get a slight boost in his ice-time.

Elmer Soderblom: Over/under 10.5 goals

Soderblom was another younger, mid-20s player that the Penguins rolled the dice on. Just as was the case with players like Chinakhov and Novak (and some of this past offseason’s additions), Soderblom was a player that posted strong rate and per-minute stats with his previous team, but never really had a chance to show what he could do with a consistent role.

After joining the Penguins he scored five goals with 10 total points in 20 games, while still posting great underlying numbers.

While his raw box score numbers for his career do not jump off the page, he has still averaged 12 goals per 82 games.

He has obvious skill and tremendous size, and I think there is still some untapped potential in him as a player. He also might get a bigger role than he ever had with the Detroit Red Wings. All of that, combined with a new 84-game season, could put him in a position to reach double-digit goals in a full season for the first time in his career.

Samuel Girard: Over/under plus-6.5 rating

Sam Girard did not have a consistently great debut with the Penguins, but I am not giving up on him still having some sort of positive impact for the Penguins.

He is still only 28 years old, has a track record of success in the NHL, and for as much as he struggled at times with the Penguins he still finished as a plus-5 after coming over in a trade from the Colorado Avalanche.

He has been a plus-6 or better in four of his NHL seasons, including this past season.

Can he do it again?

It's officially another season, another prospects ranking for the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

In years past, this has been a bit easier of an exercise, as there used to be a more clear-cut line between prospects with NHL upside and longshots. However, because of the work that general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas and his staff have put in during the last several years, the line is blurring a whole lot more - and there is a substantially higher volume of talent in the system. 

This time around, making a top-20 list was challenging. So, a few criteria were put into place: To make our list, prospects must be under the age of 26 and have played less than 50 NHL games. This excludes names such as Ben Kindel, Filip Hallander, Oliver Okuliar, and Alexander Alexeyev.

At No. 18, we put the spotlight on forward Ryan Miller, who took pretty significant strides in his development last season. We remain on the forward front for No. 17, where we cover an NCAA center - still unsigned - who continues to improve year-by-year and who has some talent to boot.

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No. 17: C Zam Plante   

If you've seen the name "Plante" a lot in hockey circles recently, there's a reason for that. The Detroit Red Wings selected Victor Plante in the second round of this year's draft, and they had also selected Max Plante two years earlier in 2024.

Well, then there's the third Plante brother, who the Penguins got their hands on in the fifth round (150th overall) in 2022. No, the eldest Plante has no plans to join his brothers in Detroit as of now, even if he remains unsigned by Pittsburgh up to this point. 

But, right now, there's no need to panic, as Zam is set to return to the University of Minnesota-Duluth for another season as Max's linemate. Both finished in the top-five in NCAA scoring during the 2025-26 season, with Max finishing third (25 goals, 52 points in 40 games played) and Zam finishing fifth (20 G, 51 P, 40 GP). This season, Victor is set to join them in Minnesota, too.

Top-20 Penguins' Prospects 2026, No. 18: Center Impressing With Rapid GrowthNext up on THN's Top-20 Penguins' Prospects list is a left winger whose all-around play, tenacity, and sheer will made an impression on the Penguins' front office last season.

Even if there's some magic between Zam and his brothers, though, the Penguins believe they have a pretty cerebral center on his own - and he's a player who keeps getting better every year. 

At just 5-foot-9, 172 pounds, size is obviously a bit of a concern for Plante as he moves forward in his development. However, not only is Plante good in all three zones, he's also a cerebral player, with his playmaking ability standing out above all else. Even if his brother, Max, is probably the most talented of the brothers, Zam is the one largely driving play on that line.

The Penguins have - especially under Dubas - been drawn to high-IQ players, and Plante is certainly one of them. His creativity, soft hands, vision, ability to expose the soft areas of the ice and create in tight spaces, and distribution skills could certainly lend to him being a solid complementary piece, perhaps even a middle-six playmaker. After all, he said upon getting drafted that he models his game after Jake Guentzel, who managed to work around his size to become one of the NHL's most creative and effective wingers.

Top-20 Penguins' Prospects 2026, No. 19: Forward Looking More Like Late-Round StealNext up on THN's Top-20 Penguins' Prospects list is a seventh-round draft selection at center who continues to build out a two-way game and could turn out to be a late-round steal.

Of course, Plante has quite a long way to go to get even close to Guentzel's level, and beyond his size, he does still need to build a more pronounced defensive game and improve his skating. But his NCAA production cannot be ignored, especially within a league that is notoriously lower-scoring. 

Penguins director of player development Tom Kostopoulos commended Plante's impressive showing at the team's annual development camp this summer and commented on Plante's competitiveness being second to none within the organization.

"I feel like any game you put this kid in, he excels at," Kostopoulos said following development camp. "Five-on-five, he thinks his way out. Four-on-four, he makes plays. Three-on-three, I thought he stood out probably more than anyone [during the final tournament in camp]. Just his creativity, his hockey sense... then he can finish and can make plays. 

"One of the interesting and cool things about development camp is that we get to know these kids off the ice, too, so we put them in competitions all throughout the week. And, I mean, he won the cornhole tournament. We're at a bowling alley, and he won't sit down from the bowling. We do trivia, he's all over the answers. It seems like anything we play, he's involved in, and guys gravitate to him. He just seems to like competing and winning. From my experience, when you have kids and players like that, it's not a coincidence that they end up on winning teams and that they end up doing well. He's a good kid to have."

Top-20 Penguins' Prospects 2026, No. 20: Defenseman Continues To Make Steady ProgressLanding at No. 20 on the THN - Pittsburgh Penguins Top-20 Prospects List for 2026 is a defenseman whose growth last season lent to him rising up the ranks.

Obviously, in order for Plante to make it at the NHL level and at the professional level in general, he will have to continue carrying that winning mindset with him. He will also have to find ways to use his creativity against bigger, better, stronger, and faster professional competition, which is something that the NCAA experience should help segue him into. Even if the potential for a higher ceiling is there, the floor also remains relatively low.

But he is off to a running start, and he only keeps improving. If Plante can find a way to hone his current skillset in professional hockey and translate that into continued production, he could become a key complementary piece of Pittsburgh's future down the line. 

The list so far

No. 20: D Chase Pietila

No. 19: C Kale Dach

No. 18:LW/C Ryan Miller

No. 17: C Zam Plante

Top-20 Penguins' Prospects: Honorable MentionsTo kick off the THN - Pittsburgh Penguins annual Top-20 Prospects list, those who barely missed the cutoff are acknowledged.

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Egor Chinakhov may have only played in 43 games for the Pittsburgh Penguins last year, but he made all of them count. 

The Penguins acquired Chinakhov from the Columbus Blue Jackets on Dec. 29 for a 2026 second-round pick, a 2027 third-round pick, and forward Danton Heinen. At the time of the trade, Chinakhov was having a miserable season, compiling only three goals and six points in 29 games.

All of that came after he requested a trade from the Blue Jackets during the 2025 offseason. Once the Penguins acquired him, he became a totally different player and gained his confidence, compiling 18 goals and 36 points in 43 games. He finished the season with 21 goals and 42 points in 72 games. 

He scored his first goal with the Penguins in only his second game, and it was a beauty. He took a long pass from Benjamin Kindel and showcased his electric release, beating Detroit Red Wings goaltender John Gibson five-hole to make it a 2-0 game in the first period. The Penguins went on to win that game by a final score of 4-1. 

From that point on, he couldn't stop scoring. His finest performance as a Penguin last season came during their game against the Boston Bruins on Mar. 8. The Penguins were down 3-0 more than halfway through the game when Chinakhov got them back in it with a blistering wrist shot on the power play. 

He was all over the ice in the rest of the game, including on Tommy Novak's overtime winner. He did all of the dirty work and made a beautiful move to the net before Novak finished the play off. That goal gave the Penguins a massive extra point in the standings, helping them make the playoffs for the first time since the 2021-22 season.

His play earned himself a three-year contract with an average annual value of $6.25 million. He has the potential to earn an even bigger payday if he plays well during the deal. 

I fully expect Chinakhov to play on the second line with Novak and Evgeni Malkin this upcoming season after how well they played on that line last year. They played 222:55 at 5v5 last season and controlled 51.8% of the expected goals, 52.8% of the scoring chances, and 52.1% of the high-danger chances. There's a potential for those numbers to improve with a full season together.

2026-27 Pittsburgh Penguins Player Projections: Bryan Rust Bryan Rust has been fantastic during his Pittsburgh Penguins tenure. Will it continue this season?

Chinakhov has great chemistry with both players and can finish the chances that they set up for him. He reads them really well and does a great job finding the soft areas of the ice.

Considering how great his production was after the trade, I think there's a very real possibility that Chinakhov scores 25-30 goals this upcoming season and could even score more than 30 if everything goes perfectly. He has the talent to do it and is in an organization that plays to his strengths extremely well. 

I've hinted at it in a couple of other pieces this offseason, but if I'm Dan Muse and Todd Nelson, I'm putting Chinakhov on the top power-play unit. He has the best release on the team and can be a threat from anywhere in the offensive zone. It would also allow him to play with Sidney Crosby more after they played together a little bit at 5v5 last season. 

Chinakhov has a ton of potential entering this season and the trade has a chance of looking like even more of a slam dunk if he hits it. 

(Data via Natural Stat Trick).

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It was the fall of 2025, in Rochester, New York, where Devon Levi was trying to prove something nobody in Buffalo particularly wanted proven.

He was told plenty about where he stood in the only NHL organization he'd ever known when he had been sent down before the season even started. The Sabres already had Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen locked in as their guy. They'd claimed Colten Ellis off waivers from St. Louis, and Ellis went and had a .903 save percentage in a third-string role, which only made things worse for Levi. A goaltender twice named the top goalie in the NCAA, a world juniors silver medalist, a player who'd once looked like Buffalo's answer in net, spent the entire 2025-26 season in the American Hockey League with no real pathway back.

He stayed there the whole year. He kept playing, and on July 1, 2026, his five-year tenure in Western New York ended with a phone call that sent him and a  2028 7th-round pick to Edmonton in exchange for a 3rd-round pick. 

The Oilers had been burned by goaltending before. Talbot, then a carousel of names, then Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard carrying the franchise to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals before the wheels came off. Last year they traded Skinner to Pittsburgh for Tristan Jarry, a swap that was supposed to end the conversation. It didn't. Jarry struggled in Edmonton the way Skinner had struggled everywhere else, and by July the Oilers were right back where they always seem to end up, staring at a crease with more questions than answers.

So they bought two more. Frederik Andersen arrived hours after the Levi trade, a reigning Stanley Cup champion at 36 years old on a one-year, $1 million deal, a clear stopgap rather than a plan. Jarry stayed put, still signed for two more seasons at $5.375 million, his price locked in regardless of how this year goes. And Levi slid in on a contract that runs out at the exact moment everything else about this roster is supposed to change.

Levi hits restricted free agency in the summer of 2027. Jarry becomes extension-eligible that same summer. And roughly $26 million in cap space opens up for Edmonton at that same moment, the biggest single-year jump the organization has had in years. The Oilers essentially have three separate clocks, all set to strike at once, and all waiting on Levi to decide what the outcome will be.

Oilers' Cap Ranking Shows a Familiar PatternWhile superstar bargains like Leon Draisaitl provide elite surplus value, pricey depth commitments continue to anchor Edmonton’s cap efficiency, preventing the roster from ranking higher than other NHL teams.

If he plays well, Edmonton walks into 2027 with a cheap, controllable goaltender on an entry-adjacent deal, room to extend him before the market resets, and the rest of that cap space free to spend on the roster around him. Jarry's extension conversation shifts from who the guy is to how the depth behind him is built. If Levi struggles, or simply doesn't get the runway to prove anything, Jarry becomes the goaltender Edmonton has to commit real term to, even though they hoped to spend that money elsewhere. Especially considering Andersen's one-year deal expires and there's no obvious answer waiting behind it.

Goaltending analyst Kevin Woodley has watched Levi's tape closely enough to know what separates this version of him from the one Buffalo gave up on. Woodley has said Levi's is one of the fastest skaters in the NHL, with excellent footwork. It's more of a matter of reining in his aggression. That adjustment is more mental than physical, and could be the whole competition this fall.

3 Rush Decisions The Oilers Need To Avoid Making This SeasonPanic signings and premature extensions could derail Edmonton's game plan this season. From goaltending battles to Savoie’s contract, the Oilers must avoid these three rush decisions.

Edmonton might create a narrative where Levi looks like the goaltender who dominated junior and college hockey before Buffalo's crease got too crowded to let him prove it, and Stan Bowman solved a decade-long problem for the cost of a third-round pick and a one-year, sub-million-dollar contract. Or, he's simply the seventh or eighth goaltending reset of the past decade, and one more name on a very long list.

Either way, the answer isn't going to come from Andersen, whose contract runs out regardless, or from Jarry, whose price is already locked in no matter what happens this season. It's going to come from the 24-year-old who spent last year in Rochester proving very little to an organization that had already stopped watching, now getting one contract year in Edmonton to prove everything at once.

It is no secret that the Montreal Canadiens have many exciting young players. Due to this, it would not be surprising if a few them get even better next season.

Because of this, let's focus on two Canadiens who have the potential to hit new levels next season. 

Ivan Demidov 

Ivan Demidov had an excellent rookie season for the Habs in 2025-26, posting 19 goals, 43 assists, and 62 points in 82 games. With numbers like these, he already cemented himself as a very important part of the Canadiens' top six. Yet, with Demidov being only 20 years old and entering his second full season with the Habs, it would not be surprising in the slightest if his offensive totals jump up next season. There is a ton to like about the young forward's game, and he has the potential to blossom into a superstar.

Jacob Fowler

Jacob Fowler left a fantastic first impression with the Canadiens last season. In his first 17 career NHL games with the Habs in 2025-26, he posted a 9-6-2 record, a .908 save percentage, a 2.43 goals-against average, and one shutout. The 21-year-old goalie looked very comfortable in his first taste of NHL action, and there is no question that he could elevate his game further with the Canadiens next season. 

Last week, Pavel Dorofeyev spoke to the media in person for the first time as a member of the New York Rangers at the Shoulder Check Showcase.  

Dorofeyev, who was traded from the Las Vegas Golden Knights to the Rangers, is beginning to adapt to his new home. 

“Right now, just trying to settle down, trying to move all my stuff to the New York area and get ready for the upcoming season.” 

The 25-year-old forward is generally familiar with the area, as he’s been training at Prentiss Hockey in Connecticut. 

Through training with Ben Prentiss over the past three years, Dorofeyev has gotten to know some of his new Ranger teammates, including Adam Fox, J.T. Miller, and Matt Rempe. 

Dorofeyev confessed that training at Prentiss Hockey has helped him with this transition to the Rangers organization.

“The past three years, I have been working with Ben, and I kind of know the area now,” Dorofeyev said. “It has kind of helped.”

The Rangers acquired Dorofeyev from the Golden Knights in exchange for the 26th overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, a 2026 third-round pick (92 overall), and a 2028 top-10 protected first-round pick. 

Shortly after the trade was finalized, the Rangers and Dorofeyev agreed to a seven-year, $77 million contract extension with an AAV of $11 million.

Training camp is set to begin in September, as we’ll get our first look at Dorofeyev with the Blueshirts.