{"id":607504,"date":"2026-04-15T02:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T02:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607504\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T02:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T02:15:07","slug":"nashville-predators-sign-daniel-nieminen-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607504\/","title":{"rendered":"Nashville Predators Sign Daniel Nieminen \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

4:45 p.m.: A short while after Nashville\u2019s announcement, the team over at PuckPedia released<\/a> the financial details of Nieminen\u2019s entry-level deal:<\/p>\n

Year
\nNHL Salary
\nSigning bonus
\nPotential performance bonuses
\nMinors salary<\/p>\n

2026-27
\n$850K
\n$75K
\nNA
\n$70K<\/p>\n

2027-28
\n$900K
\n$75K
\nNA
\n$70K<\/p>\n

2028-29
\n$950K
\n$75K
\nNA
\n$70K<\/p>\n

3:21 p.m.: The Nashville Predators have put pen to paper on one of their draft selections from last summer. The Predators have announced<\/a> the signing of defenseman Daniel Nieminen<\/a> to a three-year, entry-level contract that will begin next season.<\/p>\n

Nieminen, 20, was selected with the 163rd overall (sixth round) pick of the 2025 NHL Draft by Nashville. He was coming off a season almost exclusively with the Finnish Liiga\u2019s Pelicans, registering four goals and 11 points in 39 games with a -1 rating. Additionally, he played for Team Finland in the U20 IIHF World Junior Championships, scoring two assists in seven games with a +2 rating.<\/p>\n

This season with the Pelicans went much better for Nieminen on both sides of the puck. The Lahti, Finland native finished the year with five goals and 17 points in 47 games with a +3 rating. Unfortunately, his production at the World Junior Championships slipped, as he went scoreless throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n

Odds are, Nieminen will begin the 2026-27 campaign with the AHL\u2019s Milwaukee Admirals. Although he\u2019s unlikely to challenge for any rookie-scoring leads, Nieminen already has the skating ability for professional hockey in North America. He\u2019s managed terrific gap coverage in Finland and has the straight-line foot speed to close gaps on the rare occasion he finds himself out of position.<\/p>\n

Still, unless the Predators trade multiple defensemen this summer, or have an unexpected number of injuries during preseason play, Nieminen doesn\u2019t have a clear path to the NHL, at least for the time being. Nashville already has four left-handed defensemen signed through next season, and that\u2019s without including top prospect Tanner Molendyk<\/a>, who will undoubtedly challenge for an opening night roster spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"4:45 p.m.: A short while after Nashville\u2019s announcement, the team over at PuckPedia released the financial details of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,295525,7523,575,85,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-607504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-daniel-nieminen","11":"tag-nashville-predators","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-transactions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607504","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=607504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}