{"id":763239,"date":"2026-07-14T23:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/763239\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T23:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:01:21","slug":"washington-capitals-sign-2026-first-round-pick-oliver-suvanto-to-three-year-entry-level-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/763239\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Capitals sign 2026 first-round pick Oliver Suvanto to three-year, entry-level contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Washington Capitals<\/a> announced they have signed 2026 first-round pick Oliver Suvanto to a three-year, entry-level contract.<\/p>\n

Suvanto, taken with the 18th overall pick at the draft in Buffalo last month<\/a>, will make $1.075 million in the NHL and $87,500 in the AHL. The 17-year-old Finnish center attended his first Capitals development camp earlier in July.<\/p>\n

The Capitals plan to loan Suvanto back to Tappara, the team they drafted him from, for the 2026-27 campaign. With them, he will play a second full season\u00a0in Liiga, Finland\u2019s top pro league.<\/p>\n

Suvanto, who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 213 pounds, played the majority of his 2025-26 season (48 games) with Tappara against men. He recorded 11 points (2g, 9a) in those games, the top mark from any under-18 player. At the most recent World Juniors, he was named one of Finland\u2019s top three players after posting two goals in seven games.<\/p>\n

The Turku native was one of the youngest draft-eligible players in his class and was the third-ranked International skater by NHL Central Scouting. He has said<\/a> he models his game after his idol, fellow Finnish center Aleksander Barkov<\/a>, who is the captain of the Florida Panthers<\/a>. The two trained together as Barkov prepared to play for Finland at the 2026 World Championship.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Suvanto is the first Finnish player that the Capitals have drafted in 20 years, last taking Oskar Osala in the fourth round of the 2006 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n

After playing his final season in Finland, Suvanto will likely come to training camp in 2027 looking to compete for a spot with the Caps or start his North American pro career with the AHL\u2019s Hershey Bears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Washington Capitals announced they have signed 2026 first-round pick Oliver Suvanto to a three-year, entry-level contract. Suvanto, taken…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-763239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}