June 1: The Predators have officially announced the deal, confirming the three-year, entry-level contract.
May 29: The Nashville Predators have reportedly come to terms with an upstart forward prospect. Contract resources CapFriendly and PuckPedia both reports that the club and 20-year-old forward prospect Juuso Parssinen have agreed to the required three-year entry-level contract beginning in 2021-22 and carrying a $850,833 cap hit. The alleged contract breakdown is as follows:
- 2021-22: $750K base salary + $92.5K signing bonus and $82.5K games played bonus
- 2022-23: $750K base salary + $92.5K signing bonus and $82.5K games played bonus
- 2022-23: $775K base salary + $92.5K signing bonus and $57.5K games played bonus
Parssinen has improved by leaps and bounds since being selected by the Predators in the seventh round of the 2019 NHL Draft. Picked 210th overall, Parssinen was just eight selections away from going undrafted altogether. However, Nashville has to be glad they used a late-round flier on the Finnish product. Parssinen had played only seven games in the Liiga, Finland’s top pro level, and had recorded just one point when he was selected by the Predators. The following season, that production climbed to 12 points in 31 Liiga games, while Parssinen also enjoyed his best per-game scoring season at the U-20 junior level. And this season? The young center played exclusively in the Liiga to the tune of a whopping 42 points in 55 games, good enough for second on TPS in scoring and even earning him an alternate captain role despite his young age. He also added four points in seven games for Team Finland at the World Junior Championship, holding is own playing with and against elite NHL prospects.
While Parssinen’s scoring progression in Finland is enough to get Predators fans’ attention, they may not want to get too excited. Although Parssinen is now officially under contract, he also just signed a two-year extension with TPS back in February. That could mean that the promising young pivot remains overseas on loan for at least one, if not two years. However, when Parssinen does finally arrive in Nashville he will be that much more polished a player. At about 6’3″ and 200 pounds, there is also little concern about him adjusting to the bigger, stronger, more aggressive North American game.
If a late seventh-round pick with net front presence and leadership ability drafted out of Scandinavia who surprises with his impressive European production sounds familiar to Predators fans, it should. In many ways, Parssinen’s path to this point mirrors that of former Nashville star Patric Hornqvist, the 230th pick in 2005 out of Sweden’s Djurgardens IF. If Parssinen has the chance to even come close to making the impact on the organization that Hornvist did, perhaps it isn’t too early for fans to get excited.