{"id":623487,"date":"2026-07-15T23:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T23:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/623487\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T23:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T23:00:24","slug":"golden-knights-sign-juho-piiparinen-to-entry-level-contract-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/623487\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Knights Sign Juho Piiparinen To Entry-Level Contract \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Vegas Golden Knights have signed their seventh first-round pick in team history. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/player\/925157\/juho-piiparinen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">According to a team announcement<\/a>, the Golden Knights have signed defenseman <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/player\/925157\/juho-piiparinen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Juho Piiparinen<\/a> to a three-year, entry-level contract.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PuckPedia\/status\/2077483632025854172\" rel=\"nofollow\">PuckPedia reported<\/a> on the full breakdown of Piiparinen\u2019s entry-level deal:<\/p>\n<p>Year<br \/>\nNHL Salary<br \/>\nSigning Bonus<br \/>\nPerf. Bonus<br \/>\nAHL Salary<\/p>\n<p>Year 1 (TBD)<br \/>\n$922.5K<br \/>\n$102.5K<br \/>\nNA<br \/>\n$87.5K<\/p>\n<p>Year 2 (TBD)<br \/>\n$967.5K<br \/>\n$107.5K<br \/>\nNA<br \/>\n$87.5K<\/p>\n<p>Year 3 (TBD)<br \/>\n$1.0125MM<br \/>\n$112.5K<br \/>\nNA<br \/>\n$87.5K<\/p>\n<p>Vegas selected Piiparinen, 17, with the 29th overall pick of the 2026 NHL Draft. The draft pick used for Piiparinen was well-traveled, starting with the Colorado Avalanche and then moving to the New York Islanders, St. Louis Blues, Anaheim Ducks, and ultimately landing with the Golden Knights.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being underage, the Lahti, Finland native spent much of last season with the Finnish Liiga\u2019s Tappara, tallying three assists in 29 games with a +6 rating. In the U20 SM-sarja, Piiparinen had better offensive output, scoring one goal and 13 points in 15 games with a +9 rating. Additionally, he registered two assists in 14 playoff contests.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of immediately jumping to North American hockey, Piiparinen is likely to spend the entire 2026-27 campaign with Tappara for another year of development. He\u2019s a quality puck-moving defenseman, but more so for breaking pucks out of the defensive zone, rather than generating much offense from the point.<\/p>\n<p>As for his standing with the Golden Knights organization, it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess as to whether he\u2019ll ever play for Vegas. Perpetually in contention, the Golden Knights have traded away every first-round pick they\u2019ve ever made, aside from <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/player\/597781\/trevor-connelly\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Trevor Connelly<\/a> and Piiparinen, for immediate talent. Given that track record, it\u2019s far likelier that Piiparinen\u2019s first game in North America will with a different franchise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vegas Golden Knights have signed their seventh first-round pick in team history. According to a team announcement,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5129],"tags":[7704,149,5317,5,668,4,405,74,39,5316],"class_list":["post-623487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vegas-golden-knights","tag-2026-nhl-draft","tag-golden-knights","tag-goldenknights","tag-hockey","tag-juho-piiparinen","tag-nhl","tag-transactions","tag-vegas","tag-vegas-golden-knights","tag-vegasgoldenknights"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116926481903817429","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}