{"id":80662,"date":"2020-07-18T16:37:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-18T20:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/?p=80662"},"modified":"2020-07-18T16:37:11","modified_gmt":"2020-07-18T20:37:11","slug":"toronto-maple-leafs-sign-teemu-kivihalme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/07\/18\/toronto-maple-leafs-sign-teemu-kivihalme\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Teemu Kivihalme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/maple-leafs\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> announced that they have signed defenceman <strong>Teemu Kivihalme<\/strong> to a two-year, two-way contract extension. He will be paid an AAV of $725,000.<\/p>\n<h2>Teemu Kivihalme Signs with Maple Leafs<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Two-way deal that pays him $725,000 at the NHL level. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/t0ubrd4NAS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/t0ubrd4NAS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reporterchris\/status\/1284560159558303749?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 18, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>The 25-year-old who was drafted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/predators\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nashville Predators<\/a> in 2013 as the 140th overall selection, but he never signed with them. Therefore, after three seasons at Colorado College, he chose to turn pro in Finland and spent two years with Karpat of the SM-liiga. In his second season, he picked up 30 points in 60 games. That got him noticed by several NHL teams including Toronto. They signed him in May of 2019 to an entry-level contract.<\/p>\n<p>Kivihalme registered four goals and 14 assists with the Toronto Marlies of the AHL this season. While with Karpat, he tallied 13 goals and 37 assists in 104 games. In 34 playoffs games he had four goals and five assists. He was on the SM-liiga championship team of 2018.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means Going Forward<\/h3>\n<p>For the Maple Leafs to have another defenceman working his way to the NHL roster is an accomplishment. He has impressed enough to be invited to the Toronto training camp to see if he will participate in the play-in series against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/blue-jackets\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>. If he fails to make the lineup as a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/2020\/06\/09\/toronto-maple-leafs-black-aces\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Black Ace<\/a>, he still will be signed for the two years with an opportunity to advance to the NHL.<\/p>\n<p>The Maple Leafs finished 26th in goals allowed last season with a 3.17 goals-against-average. Granted they scored 3.39 goals a game placing them third, but the defence definitely needs to improve.<\/p>\n<p>Kivihalme&#8217;s signing is a step in the right direction especially with the uncertainty of the team&#8217;s salary cap issue. It is unknown if <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/cecico01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cody Ceci<\/a><\/strong> ($4.5M) and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/barrity01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tyson Barrie<\/a><\/strong> ($2.75M) will be re-signed as they are both unrestricted free agents. The team&#8217;s projected cap space for next season is limited with just $4.6 million available.<\/p>\n<p>The signing of Kivihalme can be viewed as an insurance policy for the team.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"4c5FmkC5RBdhZW9qSFzrYg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1190750221\" 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:'4c5FmkC5RBdhZW9qSFzrYg',sig:'RVslqxmjRWzhBWJFs4qOfVbRrUyTH8Zb4030QTAaz6E=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1190750221',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Toronto Maple Leafs announced that they have signed defenceman Teemu Kivihalme to a two-year, two-way contract extension. He will be paid an AAV of $725,000. Teemu Kivihalme Signs with Maple Leafs Two-way deal that pays him $725,000 at the NHL level. https:\/\/t.co\/t0ubrd4NAS \u2014 Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) July 18, 2020 The 25-year-old who was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2959,"featured_media":80665,"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":[18,4547,34,4548,1],"tags":[69,475,4568,72,1615],"class_list":["post-80662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leafs","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","category-uncategorized","tag-cody-ceci","tag-nhl-prospects","tag-teemu-kivihalme","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-tyson-barrie"],"modified_by":"William Grigsby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80662","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\/2959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}