Article: The Wild Are In the Darkest Days Of Cap Hell

[Dango]

10 minutes ago, SkolWild73 said:

I remember watching the wild back in 2013-2015 when we played and lost to Chicago each year in the playoffs, once in the first round and twice in the second round. Chicago went on to win the cup in two of those years.  I remember saying to a friend that we had the better team, except for one thing, they had Patrick Kane, and we did not.  In other words, they had a superstar, and we didn't.  We now finally have that superstar in Kap.  To go along with that, we have the best young core that this team has ever had in Faber, Rossi and Boldy, all 23 and younger. with a good mix of veterans in Zucc, Ek, Brodin and Spurgeon.   On top of that we have a top ranked prospect pool.  The best thing about our prospect pool is that our 4 of our prospects, Yurov, Zeev, Ohgren, and the Wall, (hopefully this year's struggles get turned around for the Wall) will more than likely be on the team next year, and be solid contributors, with Zeev and Yurov the potential to be top 4 D and a top 6 forward respectively.  And I haven't even mentioned Khus, who has looked great lately.

My point is I think that, barring a ton of injuries again next season, the Wild have the potential to be the best team we have had in Wild history starting next year and into the future.  Keep the young pieces together and see how we do in the next couple of years and then maybe make a move to get us over the hump if we have not by then.  But please do not trade any of these young pieces until we see what they can do together.  Boldy and Faber and signed through 2030 and 2033 with contracts that can be very beneficial to the team.  We will see what Rossi gets this offseason.  In my 24 years of being a Wild fan, and the many years of being a North Star fan, this is as excited as I have been about this team...well, as long as Kap resigns.

I know that Foligno doesnt get much praise here  but as our tough guy he is also the best one weve had with other skills  ,  maybe Nolan was the best overall player but he was past his prime while a Wild player .  but he still put up 40pts a season.

[FredJohnson]

16 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

but then we wouldn't be able to say - we are mediocre because of 15 million of no money! it would be half that, which isn't the same. plus - i heard he was a meany. 

probably would have been better for kap's health too....

Suter was bad for the locker room (he created division between the older players and the younger players). Cutting him was more about resetting the team culture and chemistry. 

[FredJohnson]

16 hours ago, MNCountryLife said:

Great Article.   

But aren't we supposed to talk about

Rossi

when Tony writes an article?  😉

 

The day ain’t over yet.

[SkolWild73]

2 minutes ago, Dango said:

I know that Foligno doesnt get much praise here  but as our tough guy he is also the best one weve had with other skills  ,  maybe Nolan was the best overall player but he was past his prime while a Wild player .  but he still put up 40pts a season.

I agree with you on Foligno too.  Need guys that like on the team.  I remember back in the 80's one of my favorite players was Willi Plett.  Bruiser who gave us 30-40 points a year.  I know Foligno has only given us more than 30 once I think, but still live him

[Imyourhuckleberry]

On Yurov:

Quote

He hasn’t been as productive this season but he has been a real driver of positive results and looks like he’s going to be a second-line player in the NHL to me.

If you were to fill up two buckets with his tools (one for the strengths, one for the weaknesses) and place them on a scale, the bucket with his strengths in it would be overflowing and the one with his weaknesses would be near empty.

He may not become a true star, but he’s got top-six tools and his odds of really hitting relative to where he was picked feel pretty high. His successful move to the middle is huge, too. I like him as a center a lot. -- Scott Wheeler - The Athletic

 

[FredJohnson]

17 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

Let's stop calling buy outs Cap Penalties and instead call them Signing Oopsies. Cause they are not blocking us from getting other players. They just removed Parise and Suter. Not 15 million in free money. To call it otherwise seems a bit misleading. And some here may think that we actually could have used the money. Freddy you probably thought we could go and get all the brocks we can? NO we couldn't. We paid out the money. You want them back - here is Parise and Suter. Oh but then narrative changes - it's not the money - it's the culture or whatever you want. How about we say - we overpaid for familiarity and mostly past deeds (although we did squeeze out of them a few good years). Did we learn from our mistakes or are we going to use this "oh but if not for cap hits" excuse again? or have we already started with MF, YT, RH, MJ, FG, ZB.....

regardless - you are correct - it's a mess. but this mess is systemic. billy needs to smarten up and start moving pieces that gets us result. cut this silliness of being a welcoming state (oh i can't wait for Brocks Boeser to finally make his way back or happy retirement tour Brock Nelson or No Brock Faber is my hero....anyone but him!), of always being second best (well honestly this is a stretch - we are consistently mediocre but everyone is happy enough to go along for another petiletka (old soviet goodie), and exercise process and patience. success is just around the hill, right?

 

[MacGyver]

I'm not a Suter fan but the man is laughing all the way to the bank. Getting two teams to pay him not to play and a third paying him to play. Gotta give the man some props for pulling that off.   

[Willy the poor boy]

4 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

I'm not a Suter fan but the man is laughing all the way to the bank. Getting two teams to pay him not to play and a third paying him to play. Gotta give the man some props for pulling that off.   

Him and Kirk Cousins are the GOAT's..

[OldDutchChip]

44 minutes ago, FredJohnson said:

Suter was bad for the locker room (he created division between the older players and the younger players). Cutting him was more about resetting the team culture and chemistry. 

division you say! scary times.

[Up North Guy]

4 hours ago, FredJohnson said:

Suter was bad for the locker room (he created division between the older players and the younger players). Cutting him was more about resetting the team culture and chemistry. 

And now the Blues are trying to dump him. What's that old saying? Oh yeah, Cancers Suck

[mnhockeyfan03]

Rumors are Tampa is circling the wagon with Buffalo on Tuch.  I hope we are in there trying to get him and Thompson

[Citizen Strife]

2 hours ago, mnhockeyfan03 said:

Rumors are Tampa is circling the wagon with Buffalo on Tuch.  I hope we are in there trying to get him and Thompson

How exactly would you expect any team, especially the Wild, to pull that one-off?

[Imyourhuckleberry]

17 hours ago, Citizen Strife said:

How exactly would you expect any team, especially the Wild, to pull that one-off?

Apparently by trading all of Faber, Boldy, and Rossi. I assume he likes the depth scoring and defense for the Wild since Boldy and Rossi aren't far from the combined scoring of Tuch & Thompson and he would also be clearing out their top defenseman in terms of ice time.

Thompson is the best player there right now, and on a great contract, but was barely an NHLer at Boldy's age. I'm not sure losing the top RHD on the team is worth the forward exchange, but it's certainly an interesting idea.

[mnhockeyfan03]

18 hours ago, Citizen Strife said:

How exactly would you expect any team, especially the Wild, to pull that one-off?

Trade Rossi, Boldy and Faber for Tuch and Thompson.  We are deep on D and need the scoring.  These are guys that will greatly help us.  Then figure out a way to get Zucc and Spurgeons salary off the books and get some free agents and we off to the races. Have to think outside the box.  This team needs a lot of help.  Kap will only be in his prime for 3-4 more years.  Don’t waste it.  Go for it. 

[Citizen Strife]

Did you give ODC access to your account or something?

[OldDutchChip]

1 hour ago, Citizen Strife said:

Did you give ODC access to your account or something?

oh you!

just wait until Freddy hearts this

[OldDutchChip]

2 hours ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

Apparently by trading all of Faber, Boldy, and Rossi. I assume he likes the depth scoring and defense for the Wild since Boldy and Rossi aren't far from the combined scoring of Tuch & Thompson and he would also be clearing out their top defenseman in terms of ice time.

Thompson is the best player there right now, and on a great contract, but was barely an NHLer at Boldy's age. I'm not sure losing the top RHD on the team is worth the forward exchange, but it's certainly an interesting idea.

Thompson is the best player there right now, and on a great contract, but was barely an NHLer at Boldy's age. so what that he was not the same player at Boldy's age? this trade proposal is for CURRENT Thompson and for CURRENT Boldy. Compare the current stats and play. You wanna argue that Boldy is a better player that Thompson? Ok good luck.

I don't think Buffalo will let Thompson go, but if they did - right now Thompson trumps Boldy's impact on our team. Especially for Kap. You pair him with Kap = happy Kap. 

[raithis]

On 2/6/2025 at 4:15 PM, OldDutchChip said:

Let's stop calling buy outs Cap Penalties and instead call them Signing Oopsies. Cause they are not blocking us from getting other players.

People call them that because that's what they are called - cap recapture penalties.  It means the team has that much less to work with in the year they are applied. 

And while that doesn't directly block us from getting other players, it does limit the amount of money the team has to work with in that year which restricts what players we can get.  Having a lower ceiling tends to make it harder to bring in more skilled players, and I suspect has been part of the reason we re-signed some of the players we did because we could not outbid other teams for free agents and free agents are likely not as interested coming to a team with those kinds of limits in place knowing that it's going to be hard to win in those conditions.  The guys that were here already wanted to be here and didn't need convincing.

Directly blocking us from getting players?  No.

Indirectly blocking us from getting players?  Most definitely.

 

[OldDutchChip]

1 minute ago, raithis said:

People call them that because that's what they are called - cap recapture penalties.  It means the team has that much less to work with in the year they are applied. 

And while that doesn't directly block us from getting other players, it does limit the amount of money the team has to work with in that year which restricts what players we can get.  Having a lower ceiling tends to make it harder to bring in more skilled players, and I suspect has been part of the reason we re-signed some of the players we did because we could not outbid other teams for free agents and free agents are likely not as interested coming to a team with those kinds of limits in place knowing that it's going to be hard to win in those conditions.  The guys that were here already wanted to be here and didn't need convincing.

Directly blocking us from getting players?  No.

Indirectly blocking us from getting players?  Most definitely.

 

It means the team has that much less to work with in the year they are applied.  You do understand that we signed up for Parise and Suter. This is real world commitment. So we couldn't just get money to go after number 1 Center and a number 1 Defenseman. Or you think we could have re-used the money??? Did we loose out on playing Elite players? 

[raithis]

23 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

It means the team has that much less to work with in the year they are applied.  You do understand that we signed up for Parise and Suter. This is real world commitment. So we couldn't just get money to go after number 1 Center and a number 1 Defenseman. Or you think we could have re-used the money??? Did we loose out on playing Elite players? 

Yes, I understand that.  That's why it's now a cap penalty since the team opted to end their employment with the team early.  You keep saying we shouldn't call them penalties, but that's exactly what the loss in cap space is - a cap recapture penalty.

Nowhere in my statement did I say that the team could have re-used the money.  In fact, I gave every indication of the opposite.  It's effectively not available.

And yes, with less cap space you end up having to sacrifice depth for more great and elite players.

[OldDutchChip]

3 hours ago, raithis said:

Yes, I understand that.  That's why it's now a cap penalty since the team opted to end their employment with the team early.  You keep saying we shouldn't call them penalties, but that's exactly what the loss in cap space is - a cap recapture penalty.

Nowhere in my statement did I say that the team could have re-used the money.  In fact, I gave every indication of the opposite.  It's effectively not available.

And yes, with less cap space you end up having to sacrifice depth for more great and elite players.

 

[OldDutchChip]

7 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

 

The penalty is not what’s holding us from spending the money on new players (there might be some little variance but it’s a wash) - it’s Parise/Surer or nothing. No third choice. We just decided to cut ties with them. If we’d kept them - we wouldn’t be under cap by 15 mm. To call it a cap penalty is disingenuous to people. You do not have that 15mm. You have Parise/Suter or Nothing

[raithis]

21 hours ago, OldDutchChip said:

The penalty is not what’s holding us from spending the money on new players (there might be some little variance but it’s a wash) - it’s Parise/Surer or nothing. No third choice. We just decided to cut ties with them. If we’d kept them - we wouldn’t be under cap by 15 mm. To call it a cap penalty is disingenuous to people. You do not have that 15mm. You have Parise/Suter or Nothing

Just because you don't like to think of it as a penalty doesn't mean it isn't one.  The reason they have "nothing" is because of the penalty.  I can't help you understand that any more than I've already tried.

Keeping Parise and Suter was kind of a penalty in itself considering the bs that's come out about them.  In Suter's case, multiple teams have to decided that they are better off paying for him not to be on their roster, and it sounded like St. Louis was considering a buyout as well.  That's not nothing.  And absence of a problem player is worth something too.

That, and we would have gotten hit harder yet if we didn't buy them out and they retired early.  Given Parise's injury history, that could have happened sooner than it did.

 

[OldDutchChip]

59 minutes ago, raithis said:

Just because you don't like to think of it as a penalty doesn't mean it isn't one.  The reason they have "nothing" is because of the penalty.  I can't help you understand that any more than I've already tried.

Keeping Parise and Suter was kind of a penalty in itself considering the bs that's come out about them.  In Suter's case, multiple teams have to decided that they are better off paying for him not to be on their roster, and it sounded like St. Louis was considering a buyout as well.  That's not nothing.  And absence of a problem player is worth something too.

That, and we would have gotten hit harder yet if we didn't buy them out and they retired early.  Given Parise's injury history, that could have happened sooner than it did.

 

The reason they have "nothing" is because of the penalty. 

if the buy outs had removed a draft pick (penalty 1) or added 15 mm on top of the money that we already committed to the players (penalty 2), then yes - that would be a penalty. but that was not the case. we just removed the players from our books.

i think many believe that the buy out prevents us from spending that 15 mm. whereas we have either ZP and RS or nothing. There is no in between. 

i think we are actually stating almost the same thing, just thru a bit of different view point. my view is buy outs come with inherited penalty so that you are stuck with the players or players contract. and the main point is that you cannot use the money on other players. so the talk - oh but we could have signed a few good players if not for cap penalty ..... No. Buy outs don't give you a redo. They did likely save our ass from Parise's retirement and the penalties stemming from that fiasco. 

Keeping Parise and Suter was kind of a penalty in itself considering the bs that's come out about them.  Yes 🍺 glad they are both gone