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The London Knights have added another NHL draft pick to their roster.
The team announced Thursday it has signed Finnish left winger Jesse Nurmi, the club’s first selection in this month’s Canadian Hockey League import draft.
Nurmi’s signing means the Knights could have two forwards from Finland on the ice next season. Kasper Halttunen, who scored 32 goals in the regular season and continued to fill the net in the playoffs and at the Memorial Cup, could return to the Knights if he doesn’t catch on with an American league team.
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Nurmi, 19, is good friends with Halttunen who talked with him about the Knights who lost in the Memorial Cup finals and are loaded with NHL draft picks.
Nurmi played last season in the Finnish men’s league with the KooKoo Kouvola squad and also racked up four goals and eight points in six games with the U20 club team. He was selected by the New York Islanders in the fourth round of the NHL draft in late June.
Nurmi will be on the Finnish squad in the World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth, Mich., and could face future Knights teammates Oliver Bonk, Sam Dickinson, Denver Barkey and Easton Cowan who are in the mix for Canada’s team. The event begins next week and helps countries pick players for the world junior championship.
The Knights took 17-year-old Russian centre Gleb Semenov in the second round of the import draft. The six-foot-three, 183-pounder stood out as a terrific scorer for Moscow Spartak Juniors this season.
Even with the two picks, the Knights retain the rights to Halttunen and Russian Ruslan Gazizov, the Knights third leading scorer last season.
Gazizov remains a potential major junior overager but will take a run at starting a pro career here in North America.
The Knights can only keep two imports on its roster. CHL clubs have the ability to trade an immediately drafted import pick to another team if their two spots are already filled. Theoretically, the Knights could have four imports in camp and at that point, would be trying to make two trades involving European players.
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