It's the other team in black and gold that shifted the market, and it may directly impact the Boston Bruins .
On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Penguins signed 23-year-old forward Ville Koivunen to an eight-year extension worth $32 million. The deal carries a $4 million cap hit. The contract itself is intriguing, and Kyle Dubas called it a bet shortly after finalizing the deal.
"We don't think of it as paying for potential; we view it as placing bets on what we believe the player is going to produce moving ahead," Kyle Dubas said to Penguins reporters via email .
The contract is even more intriguing when you look at Ville Koivunen's resume. The Finnish forward was a second-round pick by Carolina, acquired in the Jake Guentzel trade , and has spent most of his time with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (AHL). Over the last two seasons, Koivunen has played in 47 NHL games with 14 points (2-12–14).
"The way that older forwards who have lower lineup ceilings were paid as free agents and watching the way the restricted free agent market took shape led us to take a different view on how we wanted to handle our own players, for sure," Dubas said.
If that is how teams are going to start viewing their younger players, the price tag of both Marat Khusnutdinov and Fraser Minten shoots up.
Both forwards are under contract for the 2026-27 season, but both are currently eligible for an extension. Don Sweeney has mentioned internal conversations shifting towards the two young players back in early July.
"My discussions now turn to whether or not Fraser is ready for his extension, whether or not [Marat Khusnutdinov] is ready for an extension, [Pavel] Zacha… " Sweeney said. "So we have to forecast to that degree, and that's what we're trying to do in balancing and building the best team we possibly can for today, moving forward."
The Bruins view both Khusnutdinov and Minten as parts of their future. Don Sweeney mentioned the two of them, as well as James Hagens , when publicly responding to David Pastrnak's comments about wanting another sniff at the Stanley Cup.
"I applaud David [Pastrnak] in the sense of asking for immediate help," Sweeney said. "I'd say 10 years ago, when he was working his way into our lineup, maybe the Bergeron, Chara said, 'How good is this young man?' We might say the same thing about Fraser Minten and [Marat Khusnutdinov] and James Hagens, so [it's] going to require some patience."
The primary difference with Minten and Khusnutdinov, however, is that they both have more NHL experience than the 23-year-old who just signed an eight-year deal, and they both carved out full-time spots in the Bruins lineup. Koivunen has not done that yet in Pittsburgh, and Kyle Dubas said on Thursday that "he will still have to earn everything."
Minten has 107 games under his belt with 40 points (20-20–40) to show for it.
Khusnutdinov has played in even more games, 168, and he has 49 points (21-28–49) across three NHL seasons.
The career point-per-game totals with Khusnutdinov (0.292) and Koivunen (0.298) are comparable, but Khusnutdinov is coming off a 33-point (15-18–33) breakout season in Boston. Koivunen had seven (2-5–7) in 39 games with Pittsburgh last season.
The floor has been set. The market is shifting.
Marat Khusnutdinov, even with comparable points-per-game numbers, will command more than a $4 million AAV if the Bruins opt to go a full eight years. He's proven his worth, and if the Bruins want to take a calculated bet on their younger talent, Khusnutdinov has proven more at the highest level. AFP Analytics projected his bridge contract to be a two-year deal with a $2.87M AAV, and Koivunen's projected deal was a two-year, $1.28M AAV.
The Bruins don't have forever to make that decision. The window to re-sign players to eight-year deals expires on September 16 with the new CBA, and then the maximum drops to seven years.
If Don Sweeney wants to make the same kind of long-term bet that the Penguins just did, the clock is ticking. The difference is that his young players have more NHL experience and have already earned full-time spots in the lineup.
The question is whether Sweeney wants to make that bet or play it safe with a shorter-term bridge deal. If he does go long-term, Kyle Dubas, who drafted Minten, may be the reason that both Minten and Khusnutdinov walk away from their negotiations with a little more money in their pockets.
The post How the Penguins' Recent Extension Shifts the Market for the Bruins appeared first on Boston Hockey Now .
