Minnesota Wild: Would there be interest in Finnish center Oula Palve?

Although he made his Finnish Liiga debut in the 2012-13 season, Oula Palve is what you could term a very late-bloomer. That should make him perfect as a cheap option at center for the Minnesota Wild.

At 26 years old, Oula Palve is not exactly a prospect anymore but equally he’s by no means over the hill. He could easily become a top-nine option for the Minnesota Wild based on his prowess in the Finnish competition.

In terms of point totals, Palve has steadily increased his Liiga production in recent years, going from 22 points in his first full season to 50 last year and already sitting at 17 less than halfway through this campaign.

Looking at his stat-totals, he has also had gradual improvement on his goal scoring; 5 goals in the 2016-17 season became 14 goals last year and he has 9 goals so far this year.

Elliotte Friedman made mention of him in his latest 31 Thoughts column, saying the following:

"There were two European tournaments last week: the Deutschland Cup in Germany and the Karjala Cup in Finland. There were a few teams watching Finnish free-agent centre Oula Palve at the latter. He has 15 points in 17 games for TPS Turku, and was scoreless in this event. He’ll be 27 in February. One scout compared him to Par Lindholm, who came this year from Sweden to join Toronto. – Eliotte Friedman (31 Thoughts)"

Realising that Minnesota Wild General Manager was recently over in Russia to chat with two (hopeful) future signings, it’s not a stretch that he made the quick hop over to Finland or Germany on the way back to Minnesota.

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My thoughts on an even closer match, in terms of a player putting up 30-40 point campaigns in Liiga then coming across to play in North America would likely be former Toronto Maple Leafs’ signing Miro Aaltonen. Whilst Aaltonen never cracked the Maple Leafs’ line-up, he showed that his Liiga point totals could at least be replicated in the AHL and achieving similar results in the KHL.

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What this says is Oula Palve likely offers a suitable option to eventually replace the production of fellow Finn, Mikko Koivu, who surely is nearing the end of his tenure, given his age.

That wouldn’t be before using his countryman to help him settle in as a member of the Minnesota Wild line-up though.

Koivu put up 45 points for the team last year, and you’d think that coming over from a different league as an older guy that Palve might just be able to keep up with that sort of pace; at least 30 points or more, anyway.

Elite Prospects has him marked as more a play-maker than a goal-scorer with vision and stick-handling prowess to match. Looking at the Minnesota Wild line-up, maybe he is the perfect younger replacement for Mikko Koivu; place him next to Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker, both of whom are better known for their goal scoring.

Given you could likely control his salary cap hit at least for a trial year or two, I think this would be a very wise investment of money and possibly effort in terms of convincing the player to leave Europe.

What’s the worst thing that could happen; he comes in on a 1-year minimum cap hit deal, flops and ends up back in Finland?