{"id":30524,"date":"2018-06-06T21:10:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T01:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=30524"},"modified":"2018-06-06T21:17:50","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T01:17:50","slug":"san-jose-sharks-sign-antti-suomela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/06\/06\/san-jose-sharks-sign-antti-suomela\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks Sign Finnish League Top Scorer Antti Suomela"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-page-header\">\n<p class=\"entry-title td-page-title\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Jose Sharks<\/a> have signed JYP Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4&#8217;s\u00a0star forward <strong>Antti Suomela<\/strong> to a one-year entry-level contract. This contract carries him through to the end of 2018-19\u00a0season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SJSharks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#SJSharks<\/a> have signed unrestricted free agent center Antti Suomela to a one-year, entry-level contract. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AFwPX8E6rK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/AFwPX8E6rK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SanJoseSharks\/status\/1004481498030866433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 6, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td-page-content\">\n<h1>Antti Suomela Signs With the Sharks<\/h1>\n<p>The 24-year old was recruited from another successful season with JYP in the Finnish professional league(Liiga).<\/p>\n<p>Last season he scored 21 goals and 39 assists for 60 points. This had him tied for second in goals, and third in shots on goal (268) and only took three minor penalties all season. In 169 career games with Liiga, Suomela posted\u00a056 goals\u00a0and 75 assists\u00a0for 131 points.<\/p>\n<p>He also had one goal and two assists in six playoff games, helping JYP win the 2018 Champions Hockey League.<\/p>\n<p>The young Fin\u00a0was most recently a member of Team Finland at the World Championships in Denmark. He recorded one goal in four games.<\/p>\n<p>Sharks General Manager <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/w\/wilsodo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Doug Wilson<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/sharks-sign-finnish-centre-antti-suomela-1-year-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">spoke about this exciting new prospect<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAntti\u2019s a very skilled center who has improved his development and production in each of his three seasons in Finland\u2019s top league, we like his combination of skill, speed and defensive awareness and think his style of play fits with the way we play as a team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter leading the league in scoring, he had a number of teams interested in his services, and we are excited that he chose San Jose. We look forward to him joining our organization.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>What This Means for the Future.<\/h2>\n<p>The imposing forward was put on the Sharks\u2019 radar by Shin Larsson. The same scout who brought the other Europian forwards <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/karlsme01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Melker Karlsson<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/donskjo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joonas Donskoi<\/a> of Finland to the Sharks attention.<\/p>\n<p>Potentially, Suomela could fill a void next season with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/f\/fehrer01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eric Fehr<\/a>, set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/tiernch01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Tierney<\/a>, a restricted free agent.<\/p>\n<p>However, it is likely that Suomela may have a brief spell in the AHL to get familiar first. Either way, it&#8217;s an exciting signing for the Sharks, who need more production next season.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"fXwea3cETndWW9qokjOZKg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/955395474\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'fXwea3cETndWW9qokjOZKg',sig:'0VMJ5NJFyZEABghTKhBRI1O0dcmv_jVWzy3FRQZ1feA=',w:'594px',h:'400px',items:'955395474',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The San Jose Sharks have signed JYP Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4&#8217;s\u00a0star forward Antti Suomela to a one-year entry-level contract. This contract carries him through to the end of 2018-19\u00a0season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2344,"featured_media":30536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,3271,34],"tags":[3386,37,38,117],"class_list":["post-30524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sharks","category-european-leagues","category-news","tag-antti-suomela","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose-sharks"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}