Penguins Forward Selected to Play for Team Finland Ahead of World Championship

The 2025 IIHF World Championship is almost upon us, and while the big name countries will be taking all of the headlines, especially after the Four Nations, there's plenty of intriguing talent that will be littered throughout the tournament.

One country to keep a very close eye on will be Finland, and on Sunday, they announced that an intriguing young Pittsburgh Penguins forward will be joining their roster for the Euro Hockey Tour, which many see as a try-out for the World Championship.

The 27-year old had just 9 games of NHL experience before this last season, and while he only added another 11 games with the Penguins in 2024/25, it's clear that the national team see plenty of potential in him.

With the AHL's Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins this season, Koppanen tallied a solid 8 goals and 23 points over 56 games played, and with some big names like Aleksander Barkov and Mikko Rantanen in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, they may need to find a way to replace them somehow.

They've still got plenty of good pieces and great star power for the tournament, but with depth potentially becoming an issue if not all of their top names make it to Sweden and Denmark for the tournament, a player like Koppanen could step in perfectly.

Ultimately, he's unlikely to ever be a star at the NHL level, but Koppanen has immense potential in a given role, and if Finland get him into that role if necessary, there's no doubting that he could be a solid contributor at the national level.