Koivunen's Eight-Year Extension Signals Penguins' Focus On The Future
The Pittsburgh Penguins made a major investment in their group of forwards Thursday, signing young winger Ville Koivunen to an eight-year contract extension. Koivunen has little NHL experience, but the Pens made a calculated gamble with his new deal. Will we see this type of gamble from more teams?
Video Transcript
Running on Friday.
The Pittsburgh Penguins inked Tommy Novak to a three-year extension, that will kick in for 2027-28.
He will get 13.95 million over that span, with a cap hit of 4.65.
Drew, Tommy Novak, what do you think of this deal?
I think it's just very fine all around.
Right.
It's, like, just very vanilla.
Like, I mean, he's a good player who puts up good offensive numbers.
Pittsburgh's kinda stuck in that murky middle or whatever you wanna call it.
I'm happy for him.
I know him.
He's a great guy, so happy to see him get paid.
Yeah, I'm kinda with Drew on this one.
Like, it has been an underwhelming summer for not only the Penguins, but, you know, Kyle Dubas.
Like, you gotta remember, this is a team that exceeded expectations.
I don't think any of us picked them to be a playoff team last season.
And then going into the summer, you'd think, "All right, gotta build around that core group," which includes Crosby, Malkin, Letang, and Erik Karlsson.
Instead, I feel like Pittsburgh has taken a step back while watching a lot of the teams in the Metro, you know, just kinda pass them.
So Tommy Novak's not gonna do anything for the playoff chances.
You know, underwhelming, to say the least.
