Ville Koivunen

March 2024 – Koivunen has been traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins as a part of the package for Jake Guentzel. Curtis Rines

March 2022 – Koivunen is having a good season for Kärpät in the Liiga, sitting sixth in team scoring with 11 goals and 18 assists for 29 points in 53 games. Keep an eye on the 18-year-old’s development as he is a young prospect playing against men in Finland. Alex Wyatt

July 2021 – Koivunen was selected in the second round, 51st overall by the Carolina Hurricanes in the 2021 NHL Draft. Nick Richard

April 2021 – Ville Koivunen has gained notoriety as the season went on. He played with Samu Tuomaala, the top Finnish forward on most boards, in Kärpät and he was the one making the motor run on most nights for that line. He elevates whoever he is playing with and has helped Tuomaala stay in the first-round on most boards. He may not have the most impressive tools on the surface but when you dig into his game, he has the skating and mobility to be agile on the wing and the dual-threat ability to make him a superb playmaker while still remaining a shooting threat. He gets himself into a position to succeed by working through traffic, showing a bit of a slippery nature to his game off the puck. He doesn’t always use his speed to their full extent but has the ability to pull a bit more speed out of his back pocket when needed.  He is harder to knock off the puck than most players his size, showing a solid base and strength that allows him to navigate pressure with or without the puck. As a playmaker, Koivunen finds the open man regularly and puts the perfect amount of touch on his passes. His ability to toss sauce all over the offensive zone is impressive and he has a knack for dropping it right onto a teammate’s stick. He is a very good powerplay threat. He can play any position on the powerplay from the net-front to the half-wall, being an effective playmaker from any position, even on his off-wing. Koivunen may not be in many first-rounds come draft day but he is one of the players drafted on day two that could have people asking why he wasn’t drafted higher when we look back on 2021 in a decade. Tony Ferrari