Koivunen returning to form with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton – Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice

It’s been an up and down season for Ville Koivunen with the Penguins this year.

Literally.

After making the NHL roster out of training camp and appearing in two games with Pittsburgh, Koivunen was loaned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in mid-October, tearing it up offensively with the American Hockey League Penguins to the tune of 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in six games.

Koivunen returned to Pittsburgh after the two-week AHL stint at the end of October and would go on to appear in 23 more NHL games through the end of the 2025 calendar year, with his last NHL appearance to date coming Jan. 4 at Columbus.

That’s when the decision was made to loan the 22-year-old forward to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton again, with the NHL club getting healthy and Koivunen’s ice time on the NHL roster dwindling toward single digits.

This is sometimes life for a young player in the pro hockey circuit.

“It’s tough up there,” Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins head coach Kirk MacDonald said. “He really hasn’t played a lot of minutes when he was up in Pittsburgh this year. Like, he was getting 10 (minutes), maybe 12 on a good night. He’s not playing special teams, or it’s the last 30 seconds of the power play. It’s tough to get any rhythm.”

Through the ups and downs that come with floating between the NHL and AHL, Koivunen has been working to re-establish himself as an offensive force in the AHL while also focusing on being a more reliable player in all three zones.

“If you look at the (recent) five-game winning streak, at five-on-five I don’t think he turned the puck over once. The offense takes care of itself,” MacDonald said.

It seems like a simple philosophy: making better decisions with the puck translates to more puck possession and more opportunities to create offense.

“I think we’re good when we get the puck into the offensive zone, but we need to be better in the defensive zone — just smarter with the puck sometimes,” Koivunen said.

A big part of the equation is simply playing with confidence, which Koivunen admitted after a recent win in Allentown he and his linemates have been playing with plenty of lately.

“Yeah, I think (there were games) where it wasn’t going in, but now (they are),” Koivunen said after a one-goal, three-assist performance Feb. 6 against Lehigh Valley, crediting his linemates for helping create scoring chances throughout the contest.

Prior to this weekend’s games, Koivunen had 15 points (five goals, 10 assists) in his past 10 games.

All in all, playing a large role in the AHL with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has Koivunen playing at the top of his game, allowing himself the best opportunity to hit the ground running the next time Pittsburgh calls him back up to the NHL.

“He’s doing a great job working, and it’s all part of the process with him,” MacDonald explained, reiterating it is Koivunen’s second full season of pro hockey in North America and he’s still only 22 years old. “There are going to be times where it’s up and down.”