Jonas Brodin signs seven-year, $42 million extension with Wild

On an otherwise slow hockey day for any team that’s not the Dallas Stars, New York Islanders or Tampa Bay Lightning, The Athletic’s Michael Russo dropped a bombshell as far as the Minnesota Wild are concerned, breaking the news that the Wild have signed defenseman Jonas Brodin to a bank-breaking seven-year, $42 million extension.

Brodin’s current six-year, $25 million deal was set to expire at the end of the 2020-21 season, but now ensures the former first-round pick will be in a Wild uniform until the 2027-28 season. His new deal is a significant raise of over $1.8 million per year — one that general manager Bill Guerin was willing to pay after Brodin’s banner season in 2019-20, scoring a career-high 28 points in only 69 games of a COVID-shortened regular season.

Brodin’s extension includes a no-movement clause through the first four years of the deal, with no such limitation in years 5-7. These terms ensure that Brodin will be a member of the Wild through the NHL Expansion Draft for the Seattle Kraken in June of 2021, as any player with a no-move clause must automatically be on the Wild’s protected list.

What does this mean for a player like Matt Dumba? Will the Wild trade two King Clancy Award winners in back-to-back years, having traded Jason Zucker to the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier this year? Time will tell, but at the very least, a move like this seems to make that possibility significantly more likely.