Sampo Ranta Signs In Sweden
Pending Colorado Avalanche restricted free agent forward Sampo Ranta has signed a two-year contract with the newly-promoted MoDo Hockey of the SHL, as announced by the team Thursday.
Colorado can still issue a qualifying offer to Ranta, which would keep him on the organization’s reserve list when his SHL deal expires in 2025. The Avalanche would maintain his rights at that point if he wanted to make an NHL return.
The 22-year-old Finn was a third-round selection of the Avalanche in 2018, but his promising collegiate numbers haven’t yet translated to the pro level. Over the past two-and-a-half seasons with the AHL’s Colorado Eagles, Ranta has registered 22 goals and 43 points in 110 games. It’s not awful, but after a point-per-game junior campaign with the University of Minnesota in 2020-21, the organization was expecting a bit more.
Ranta did get multiple NHL looks, accumulating 16 regular-season games and two playoff games, but he failed to register a single point. For an Avalanche team that relies heavily on its top-six forward group, there weren’t many ice time opportunities for Ranta even when in the NHL lineup.
It’s likely why he’s opted to head overseas to a hungry MoDo team looking to stay in Sweden’s top league after earning promotion from the Allsvenskan this past season. He’ll have plenty of opportunity there and should be among the team’s scoring leaders at season’s end.
Born in Naantali, Finland, this will be Ranta’s first time playing in a European league since junior action with the Red Bull Hockey Academy in Austria in 2015-16.
Avalanche Recall Sampo Ranta
With Darren Helm set to miss some time, it was expected that Colorado would need to bring up a forward to replace him. They’ve done just that as Peter Baugh of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the Avs have brought up winger Sampo Ranta from AHL Colorado. While they don’t have an open roster spot available, that can easily be covered by shifting Helm to injured reserve.
The 22-year-old has now been recalled six times this season although it hasn’t yielded much in the way of NHL playing opportunities. Ranta has suited up in just five games for the Avalanche so far where he has been held off the scoresheet while averaging barely over seven minutes a night on the fourth line. Ranta also played in ten games at the NHL level last season where he logged a little more than ten minutes a night while failing to record a point.
However, Ranta has had a bit of success offensively in the minors this season with five goals and five assists in 26 games, numbers that put him on pace to match the seven goals and seven helpers in 38 contests from a year ago. If he gets into the lineup, he’ll likely be asked to see spot duty on the fourth line once more but it’s likelier at this point that he’ll serve as the 13th forward.
Colorado has had to dip into LTIR in recent weeks to cover for the long list of injuries that they have and they have ample space to fit in Ranta’s $925K AAV. However, while they’re using LTIR, they aren’t able to bank cap space which will make adding at the trade deadline a little more difficult until they can get enough players healthy to avoid needing to use it. Helm’s injury and Ranta’s recall will make that task a little harder.