Not many people would have known the name Otto Koivula before the 2016 draft. After a great first AHL season in Bridgeport though, he’s emerged as one of the New York Islanders’ top forward prospects.
The 6-foot-4 forward is still just 20 years old and it’s likely we see him return to Bridgeport for a second season. Considering New York’s lack of scoring though, the hope is that Koivula could play an important role with the Islanders in the coming years. To project how he could turn out in the NHL, we can measure him against some comparable players who have taken a similar route to Koivula thus far.
Koivula averaged 45.4 points per 82 games in his 18 and 19 year old seasons in Finland, while averaging 54.7 points per 82 in Bridgeport. As a baseline for how this projects against current NHL players from Finland, two close comparables are Joonas Donskoi and Miikka Salomaki. Donskoi averaged 41 points per 82 in his 18/19 year old Liiga seasons but didn’t cross over to the AHL at 20 years old. Salomaki, on the other hand, averaged 40 points per 82 games between his 18/19 year old Liiga seasons while totalling an identical points per 82 game average in his 20-year-old AHL season to that of Koivula.
Donskoi is good for about 35-40 points per year but Salomaki has struggled to find any consistency in the NHL, with a career high of 10 points in his first four NHL seasons.
As for other comparables, Mikael and Markus Granlund each averaged much higher totals, both in Finland and the AHL at the same age. Mikael Granlund has had multiple 65+ point seasons, while Markus Granlund has only passed the 30-point-mark once in his career so far. Either way, Koiuvla’s stats against theirs have his NHL projection quite lower than both. Joel Armia could be another comparable, averaging about 12 more points per 82 games in his 18/19 year old Liiga seasons and roughly 14 less points per 82 games in his 20-year-old AHL season. He’s averaged about 30 points per 82 games in his last two NHL seasons.
A key here though is that all three close comparable players are no older than 27 years old, meaning there’s still a chance that they could end up producing at higher rates in the upcoming years. Also, these are just stats and realistically, how Koivula performs in the NHL is still completely up in the air. That said, using players who have taken the same route as Koivula in Armia, Donskoi and Salomaki as comparables, at a guess simply based on stats, he may project as a third-line player good for about 30-40 points per year.
New York Islanders Blogger • 
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