By Luke Sims -
When Bill Guerin bought out franchise Zach Parise and Ryan Suter in July 2021, the team knew they were plunging themselves into “Cap Hell.” The $14,743,588 cap penalty for buying Suter and Parise out through the 2024-25 season is steep. Compared to other NHL teams, it essentially doomed the Wild to play with one hand behind their back.
In the years since the buyouts, the Wild have failed to advance past the first round and missed the playoffs last season. Fans have been waiting for the magical summer when the dead cap hits from the Parise and Suter deals go from $14,743,588 to $1,666,666.
The Wild are then free to spend money and add to a bunch of top talent in free agency to complement their upcoming prospects. The problem is the Wild don’t have this option anymore.
They’ve already spent that money.
Minnesota could have had a plethora of money to spend if it didn’t lock itself into so many players. The Wild suddenly has $72 million or $73 million, depending on the amount of the Brock Faber extension committed to 15 players for the 2025-26 season. That’s over 80% of the cap. A standard NHL roster has at least 20 players.
The Wild have $45.44 million tied up in only nine players and the small cap hits of the Parise and Suter buyout for the 2026-27 season. Most concerning? That number doesn’t include Kirill Kaprizov and Faber, who aren’t under contract for that season.
Minnesota has chosen to lock in their depth players to long-term deals at expensive cap hits relative to those players' value. The combination of Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, Freddy Gaudreau, and Yakov Trenin at forward, in addition to the freshly signed Jake Middleton extension on defense, will cost the Wild $17.95 million for the next three years. All those deals besides Hartman’s go for an additional year – or more, in Middleton’s case. That’s nearly 20% of the cap space on players at the bottom of the lineup (or should be based on their skill set).
The Wild have Marcus Johansson coming off the books next season for $2 million, Jon Merrill another $1.2 million, and Marc-Andre Fleury at $2.5 million. That’s almost $6 million dedicated to those veterans.
So we add that $6 million with the other $13,076,922 from the buyouts, and we’ve got almost $20 million to spend. Woohoo!! Instead of watching free agency from the sideline and making small signings, the Wild watching free agency from the sideline will go out and sign some big-name players and bring the Stanley Cup back to the State of Hockey!
If only.
That could have been Minnesota’s reality. Instead, the Wild have chosen to lock up a lot of their money. While the Wild will have almost $20 million in cap space, the team still needs to make more moves.
Faber’s extension will come in at least $8 million per year. For argument’s sake, let’s hope the Maple Grove native takes a hometown discount and signs for $8 million per year. Marat Khusnutdinov, 21, will need a new deal and will be worth at least $1 or $2 million. He’s a strong two-way player who projects to have a good season and is a valued prospect. Maybe the Wild want to give him a longer-term deal and will have to pay him more. Those two players will probably combine for at least $10 million.
That leaves the team with $10 million. While Fleury will have retired by then, the Wild must sign stud goalie prospect Jesper Wallstedt to a new deal. I have no idea how much or how well Wallstedt will play, but Minnesota’s goalie of the future may command a meaningful salary.
If we assume Wallstedt plays well, and the Wild want to keep him (they better!), he should cost $2-3 million on a short-term deal. That’s another little chunk gone. Assuming Wallstedy plays well, Minnesota will have about $7 million in cap space.
Marco Rossi is the final piece in this cap puzzle. He’s due for a raise if the Wild don’t trade him. Hockey Wilderness projected that he would earn something in the $2.5 to $4.5 million range for two or three years – a bridge deal.
If the Wild trade Rossi, the player they will get back will cost that or more. Rossi will be on the high side of that range or more if he plays well. Assuming Rossi crushes it like the hardworking player he’s shown he is and gets a deal worth $4 million, that leaves the Wild with $3 million in cap space.
Maybe some of those numbers come in lower, but not by that much. At most, the Wild could have around $6 million – the same amount the team has available in the Parise and Suter Cap Hell.
The team could look to move one of those contracts, but Guerin likes “his guys.” Fans and pundits can speculate about how to move contracts like Johansson, Foligno, and Gaudreau, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Guerin values the locker room chemistry and other intangibles. The front office sees Middleton as an integral part of the locker room and the culture Guerin values. I have no idea how that gets included when Guerin decides how much more money these guys deserve.
Another side effect of the long-term depth pieces is that the Wild block their elite prospect pool from reaching the NHL. The Wild tend to bring their prospects along slowly and make them prove their worth in the AHL and bottom six instead of putting them in positions to succeed.
How will the Wild work all these prospects with the bottom six spots locked up? The team is uncomfortable with the young guys playing in the top six, and there are no bottom six spots left, so where will they go?
On defense, the Wild just drafted an excellent two-way defender in Zeev Buium. On the left side, the Wild has Jonas Brodin and Middleton. Will the team limit Buium to a third-pair role, or will they be paying a third-pair defender in Middleton $4.35 million?
I’m not saying that the Wild should never sign long-term deals. I’m in love with the Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek deals. On those contracts, those players provide tremendous value for the Wild. Eriksson Ek and Boldy are well worth their contracts and then some. Winning teams have those kinds of contracts for their players.
Last year, the Wild prematurely signed Foligno, Hartman, Gaudreau, Merill, Mats Zuccarello, and Johansson to extensions. They all had down years and did not live up to the value of their contracts.
Now, the Wild are “hoping” that this collection of veterans starts playing better and everything fixes itself. That’s not a solution or a plan; it is a delusion.
But that’s all they can do. Moving the contracts is costly, and many of these guys have no-move clauses.
In need of a change, the Wild doubled down on what was already wrong.
All stats and data via CapFriendly (R.I.P) unless otherwise noted.
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