{"id":532128,"date":"2026-03-11T00:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532128\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T00:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:18:12","slug":"joona-koppanen-expected-to-sign-with-shls-lulea-hf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532128\/","title":{"rendered":"Joona Koppanen Expected To Sign With SHL’s Lulea HF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penguins pending UFA center\u00a0Joona Koppanen<\/a>\u00a0is expected to sign with Lule\u00e5 HF of the Swedish Hockey League for next year, as noted by David Olsson Jiglund of Kuriren<\/a>. He won\u2019t technically be a UFA until July 1, but he can formalize an agreement with them when SHL free agency opens in May, after the NHL regular season is over.<\/p>\n

Koppanen, 28, was a fifth-round pick by the Bruins in 2016. He didn\u2019t make his NHL debut until six years later, which turned out to be his final season in the Boston organization. He became a Group VI unrestricted free agent in 2023 and signed a two-year deal with Pittsburgh, where he\u2019s remained ever since, primarily as a big AHL depth piece with some call-up utility.<\/p>\n

The 6\u20195\u2033, 216-lb Finn has appeared in 30 NHL games over the past four seasons, 27 of which have come in Pittsburgh. He has just one goal and two assists, though, along with a -4 rating while averaging 11:55 of ice time per game. He\u2019s below-average on draws and, while he\u2019s provided fine possession metrics in heavy defensive usage, hasn\u2019t excelled there either. That makes his low point totals in double-digit minutes per game too much of a net negative to give him an extended look, even if he does provide an effective physical presence, averaging two hits per game.<\/p>\n

In the AHL, Koppanen has been a consistent, two-way, middle-six forward. He almost always averages around a half a point per game, including a 6-10\u201316 scoring line with Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton this season.<\/p>\n

Koppanen will now play in a top-level European league for the first time since the 2020-21 campaign. He spent all of his post-draft campaign in Finland\u2019s junior circuit before Boston signed him to an entry-level deal. For 2017-18, they loaned him to Ilves in Finland\u2019s first division, Liiga, for most of the year before bringing him over to North America for the rest of his tenure in the organization. He then returned to Ilves on loan during the COVID-shortened 2021 season before AHL games got underway.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll join a Lule\u00e5 team that won its first SHL championship since 1996 last year. They\u2019re relatively light on NHL experience for a big-name European club, though. Leading the way with 91 games from 2010-14 is 37-year-old defenseman\u00a0Erik Gustafsson<\/a> (not the current Red Wings depth name).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penguins pending UFA center\u00a0Joona Koppanen\u00a0is expected to sign with Lule\u00e5 HF of the Swedish Hockey League for next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,113935,575,4785,5193,85],"class_list":["post-532128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-joona-koppanen","tag-nhl","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-shl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}