The Nashville Predators have signed forward Juuso Pärssinen to a three-year, entry-level contract beginning with the 2021-22 season. The Finnish forward — drafted 210th overall at the 2019 NHL Entry Draft — has been playing in the TPS organization in Finland, including at the Liiga level for the past two years.
In the season following his draft year, Pärssinen flourished at the U20 level in Finland, scoring 21 points in 20 games before earning a 31-game stint at the professional level. After notching five goals in the Liiga last year, Pärssinen skyrocketed up TPS’s depth chart. In the 2020-21 season, he most often centered the team’s top line and served as an assistant captain on his way to an eight-goal, 42-point season.
That scoring rate put him second on the team in scoring behind Huntsville native Josh Kestner, and he led all U20 players across the Liiga in point production; He ranked second in that regard when measuring points per game.
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Pärssinen also played a middle-six role for Team Finland at the 2021 World Junior Championship (WJC), scoring two goals and four points in seven games and capturing a bronze medal.
Pärssinen is well defined by his transition game at even-strength play. This season, in ten games I tracked, he exited the defensive zone with control on 68.57% of his attempts and continued that possession through an offensive-zone entry at a 60.00% success rate.
He also upped his shot production, recording 11.57 shot attempts per 60 minutes of even-strength play—including 4.34 attempts from high-danger areas. Pärssinen notched a 53.7% Corsi rate despite having a mediocre on-ice save percentage of 0.918 relative to other forwards on his team.
Earlier this year, Pärssinen signed a two-year contract extension with TPS through the 2022-23 season. When his entry-level deal takes effect, he will be on loan to the Liiga. His contract comes with a cap hit of $850,833 in each of the three years but is structured as follows:
- 2021-22: $750,000 base salary; $70,000 minors salary; $92,500 signing bonus; $82,500 performance bonus
- 2022-23: $750,000 base salary; $70,000 minors salary; $92,500 signing bonus; $82,500 performance bonus
- 2023-24: $775,000 base salary; $70,000 minors salary; $92,500 signing bonus; $57,500 performance bonus/
Upon expiry, he will be a restricted free agent.
All contract details are courtesy of capfriendly.com and puckpedia.com. All statistics are courtesy of eliteprospects.com, liiga.fi, or manually tracked.