Colorado Saved the Wild From Themselves By Signing Brock Nelson

Front offices often see free agency as the quick and easy way to upgrade the team without giving up conventional assets like roster players, draft picks, or prospects. Cap flexibility and cold hard cash are the only assets a team gives up. In the case of some free agents, teams need a ton of cash to persuade them to put on their sweater.

The Wild spent serious cash in 2012 when they signed Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to matching 13-year, 98 million deals. The Wild and general manager Bill Guerin would have to buy out both contracts, costing the Wild nearly $15 million in dead cap space. 

However, those penalties lightened significantly this year, and the Wild have over $22 million to spend in free agency. Minnesota needs centers who could be responsible on both ends of the ice and win faceoffs. A homecoming with the upcoming free agent center and former Minnesota high school star Brock Nelson sounded enticing.

The Colorado Avalanche ended those dreams by signing Nelson to a three-year, $22.5 million contract. Still, the price and term Nelson signed for in Colorado would have been a nightmare for the Wild.

Nelson signed a three-year extension with an average annual value of $7.5 million to stay in Colorado. He will turn 34 at the start of next season, the first year of a contract that will pay him through age-36. 

Nelson is a solid player. He’s a proven goal scorer with three seasons of 30 or more goals. Nelson is also a late bloomer who played his best hockey later in his career, similar to Guerin. Nelson also elevates his game in the postseason (54 points in 85 games). Nelson is among the best in the game in the faceoff dot (career 52.1%). He’s also 6-foot-4, and Minnesota’s centers lack size.

The Avs extended Nelson to secure the second-line center spot behind Nathan MacKinnon for the next few seasons while their window is still open. 

However, Colorado may have engaged in a bit of sunk-cost fallacy with Nelson. The Avs gave up a first-rounder and a top prospect to bring Nelson to Colorado. They would hate to see their asset walk into unrestricted free agency. Lucky for the Avs, they got Nelson on a cheaper deal than if they had gotten in a bidding war for his services.

Sam Bennett, a lesser version of Nelson who plays for the Florida Panthers, reportedly could get over $10 million in free agency. That’s a whole lot of money (that the Wild better not pay) for a player who has cracked 50 points only once in his NHL career.

That makes the Nelson deal look solid for the Avalanche from a pure contract value perspective. However, there’s a five-year age gap between Bennett, 28, and Nelson. Therefore, there’s a higher chance you will get more production from Bennett in the next five seasons than from Nelson.

Ultimately, Colorado extending Nelson is a good thing for the Wild. Paying a guy at least $7.5 million to fill a role that Joel Eriksson Ek largely occupies would be a decision with diminishing returns. Nelson is a complementary player for a team with MacKinnon on its top line, where Eriksson Ek needs a better center to complement him. The Wild have already been burned enough by giving out contracts to aging veterans. 

The Wild are in for a huge offseason. They have at least $15 million to spend after extending Kirill Kaprizov and Marco Rossi (or signing a similar center).

Nelson doesn’t fit Minnesota’s needs. The Wild hopes Danila Yurov, a Russian prospect with huge potential, will fit at center and evolve into the top-line scoring center they need. Then Eriksson Ek would fall into the second-line spot that Nelson will occupy in Colorado.

Contract value aside, Nelson would be a solid contributor to this team. Still, they must add a second-line winger. Ideally, they re-signed Marcus Johansson for a depth role, not a second-line one where they’d be asking too much of him. It’s better for this team’s future that Yurov takes minutes in the middle six and the Wild add a winger rather than spending what most likely would have been more than $7.5 million on an aging center.

Who knows? Maybe the Wild would have given Nelson a deal that paid him more for less term, or the Warroad product would have returned to the State of Hockey for a hometown discount. While that’s fun to speculate about, the Wild must look elsewhere if they want to add centers to this team.

So, for all the Wild fans who hoped for Nelson to have a homecoming, please thank the Avalanche for saving Guerin and the Wild from the temptation of overpaying Nelson in free agency.

All stats and data via HockeyDB and CapWages unless otherwise noted.