Ville Koivunen Wins Fortune Tires Expect More AHL Player Award for February

Ville Koivunen has been named Fortune Tires “Expect More” AHL Player of the Month for February after a 16-point surge that paced the entire league. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and the AHL credited Koivunen with six goals and 10 assists in 11 games, and TheAHL noted Fortune Tires will contribute $500 to the player’s charity of choice as part of the award program.

Koivunen’s month was a sequence of game-defining plays. He assisted on the third-period game-winner in a 4-1 victory over Hershey on Feb. 4, then matched a career-high with a four-point (1G-3A) outing in a 6-5 win at Lehigh Valley on Feb. 6. He added two assists on Feb. 7, including the setup on the overtime winner at Hershey, and was the only Wilkes-Barre/Scranton regular not to find the scoresheet in the club’s Feb. 14 shutout loss to the Syracuse Crunch.

The scoring didn’t stop after that lone blank night. Koivunen recorded a goal and an assist in a 4-3 overtime loss to Cleveland on Feb. 15, then scored twice in a 7-2 road win at Springfield on Feb. 18 — a game in which Avery Hayes had a hat trick, Tanner Howe also scored twice, and Sergei Murashov recorded 30 saves. Koivunen capped the month by netting the game-winning goal in a 3-2 home win over the Bridgeport Islanders on Feb. 21. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton finished February 8-1-2-0 (.818), and the club’s release notes Koivunen posted four multi-point games and failed to record a point in only that single contest against Syracuse.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s season worksheet lists Koivunen with 11 goals and 21 assists for 32 points in 27 games with the Penguins, his 21 assists leading the team and his 32 points ranking second on the club. Sports Yahoo offered a slightly different snapshot, reporting 31 points in 25 games and noting that figure made him third in the league in points per game; that outlet also called Koivunen “one of the most intriguing players in the system” and argued his AHL production suggests he is close to another NHL chance while adding that skating limitations were evident in his NHL minutes.

Koivunen carries NHL experience into the discussion: Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s release lists 27 games with Pittsburgh this season and five NHL points (2 goals, 3 assists), and it records his first NHL goal on Dec. 4, 2025 against Tampa Bay. A 22-year-old native of Oulu, Finland, Koivunen was selected in the second round, 51st overall, by Carolina in the 2021 draft and was acquired by Pittsburgh at the 2024 NHL trade deadline as part of the Jake Guentzel package.

TheAHL framed the award’s purpose plainly: “Each month, the Fortune Tires ‘Expect More’ AHL Player of the Month award will honor one standout player from the league for exceptional performance,” and the league reiterated Fortune Tires’ charitable pledge that the monthly winner’s charity will receive $500, with $2,500 earmarked for the Player of the Year. Koivunen is the third player in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton history to earn AHL Player of the Month honors, joining Chris Conner (February 2010) and Carter Rowney (March 2016), and he begins March riding a six-game point streak and a clear momentum push toward the Penguins’ next meeting with Springfield on Wednesday, Mar. 4 at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza, 7:05 p.m.