Jets pending RFA center Rasmus Kupari has agreed to terms on a two-year deal with HC Lugano of Switzerland’s National League, the club announced today. While Kupari obviously does not intend to return to the NHL next season, Winnipeg can still retain his signing rights through the 2026-27 season with a qualifying offer before the June 30 deadline.
Kupari, acquired from the Kings in 2023’s Pierre-Luc Dubois trade, was a regular on the Jets’ fourth line this year until the trade deadline. The acquisition of Brandon Tanev from the Kraken pushed him down the depth chart, plus concussion symptoms limited his availability for a good chunk of the remaining regular season. He was cleared to return for Game 2 of Winnipeg’s first-round series against the Blues but remained out of the lineup for the entirety of the postseason.
All told, the 25-year-old played 87 games for the Jets over the last two regular seasons combined. He was a frequent healthy scratch in the first year of his tenure, although he did miss nearly two months with a shoulder issue as well, leading to just 28 appearances that year.
A first-round pick by Los Angeles in 2018, Kupari has rarely been elevated out of a fourth-line role during his five NHL seasons and hasn’t sniffed his offensive ceiling as a result. He had a career-high 15 points in 66 games with the Kings in his final year there before the trade. After signing a two-year, $2MM contract with the Jets following his acquisition, Kupari mustered a 5-4–9 scoring line with a minus-six rating over the life of the deal while averaging just 9:54 of ice time per game.
What Kupari lacks in offensive production, he’s somewhat compensated for in other areas of his game. He’s averaged 97 hits per 82 games over his career, wins over 50% of his faceoffs, and had good possession metrics in heavy defensive deployment in 2024-25 (49.0 CF%, 50.0 xGF%, 76.1 dZS%) at even strength.
That’s not Kupari’s calling card, though. He’s flirted with the point per game mark in the AHL before and had 33 points in 43 games for Kärpät in Finland’s top league back in 2018-19 before coming over to North America. It’s sensible that he’d look for more opportunity than he’ll realistically land in Winnipeg or anywhere else in the NHL next season by heading back to Europe.
A two-year deal with Lugano will walk Kupari to unrestricted free agent status in the 2027 offseason unless the Jets reach a deal to bring him back to the NHL before July 1 of that year. He was owed a $1.1MM QO this summer, though, making him a legitimate non-tender candidate given his limited deployment.
Image courtesy of James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images.
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