Wings sign Finn to one-year deal
Ville Leino ended up being the free agent forward who signed with the Wings. While the word on the street was that Fabian Brunnstrom would have received a two-year deal, Leino signed a one-year contract that sounds like it is pretty similar to the deal Igor Grigorenko signed last offseason.
“If he can’t make the team, we’ll probably send him back to the Finnish League,'’ [Red Wings general manager Ken] Holland said. “I think if [he] has to go down (to Grand Rapids) for a couple weeks to get acclimated, he’ll do that. The plan is he’s coming to North America to try to play in the NHL.'’
He had a solid season in the Finnish SM-Liiga and was second in scoring for the entire league. He plays for the team Valtteri Fippula played for before he came over to North America but Fil was 20 during his final season for Jokerit Helsinki. Leino was 24 this season. Here were each players’ stats from when they were 20 years old.
| Player | Team | Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
|
Ville Leino |
Ilves Tampere | 54 | 9 | 15 | 24 |
|
Valtteri Filppula |
Jokerit Helsinki | 55 | 10 | 20 | 30 |
Leino had a solid plus/minus rating so that’s a good sign although Red Wings Central indicates he really needs to work on improving his defensive play. Leino broke the club record for points in a season and won the Lasse Oksanen trophy as the regular season MVP.
That trophy might not be as much of a predictor of future success as the Rookie of the Year award for the Elitserien in Sweden. However Tim Thomas won the award and has been doing pretty well for the B’s. Antti Mietinen with the Stars won the award also, as did Montreal captain Saku Koivu. So it sounds like he’s a pretty solid talent who fits Detroit’s style of play and has decent size [6′1″, 185 lbs].
Hopefully he reports to training camp in better shape than Igor Grigorenko did.
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