By Tony Abbott -
If there is anything Bill Guerin's Minnesota Wild front office has done incredibly well, it's getting value at the margins of the roster. Some of this is by necessity. Guerin has spent almost his entire tenure in St. Paul with the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter millstones tied to his salary cap. He's had to get bargains, and the Wild's hit rate with those is pretty high.
Before the 2020-21 season, Guerin picked up Nick Bonino as a throw-in component to the Luke Kunin trade, then swung a low-cost trade for Ian Cole. The following year, he built half a defense on the cheap with Alex Goligoski, Jon Merrill, and Dmitry Kulikov. He also signed Freddy Gaudreau to a dirt-cheap two-year deal, which also proved valuable over that summer. Last season, Guerin struck again with Sam Steel, getting the most value possible from a one-year, $825K deal. Over the summer, Patrick Maroon came to Minnesota and has more than earned his $800K salary.
We can go on: Signing Ryan Hartman to a three-year deal at a $1.7 million cap hit. Trading Kaapo Kähkönen for Jake Middleton. Swinging bargain-basement deals for Marcus Johansson in his second stint in Minnesota, Oskar Sundqvist, and Gustav Nyquist at last year's trade deadline. The Wild find these super-cheap acquisitions, then squeeze out positive value with them, even from guys like Ryan Reaves and Jordie Benn.
At least until it's time to extend them.
Guerin's Wild tends to fall in love with their bargains and then pays them to the point where they're no longer valuable deals. Merrill was an excellent pickup for one year, $850K. Slap a three-year extension on him, and suddenly, he's a 32-year-old whose $1.2 million AAV is one they'd probably rather not have. Gaudreau is a great player at $1.2 million for two years. Not so much when that contract balloons to five years at $2.1 million per year. How many Wild fans would turn down the opportunity to Thanos-snap Johansson's $2 million freight for this year and next out of existence? Probably not many, even if he provided insane value down the stretch for a low-cost deadline move.
So it's natural to feel nervous when you hear The Athletic's Joe Smith and Michael Russo floating Bill Guerin's interest in re-signing Zach Bogosian.
Bogosian is another cheap player the Wild are wringing out every last bit of value from, acquiring him and his $850K cap hit in exchange for a seventh-round pick in November. Minnesota couldn't have expected more. In 40 games with the Wild, Bogosian has nine points and is averaging 17 minutes and 36 seconds per game. Both figures are his best since 2018-19, when he played a top-four defenseman role for the Buffalo Sabres.
That production is coming at a time when the Wild are desperate for any blueline help. His Standings Points Above Replacement (SPAR) this season sits at 1.2, making him the third-best defenseman on the team behind Brock Faber and Jonas Brodin. Only Middleton (0.3 SPAR) joins that group as being above replacement level.
Looking at this season, it's easy to see why the Wild would want to keep Bogosian around. Beyond his season and the Cups-In-The-Room factor, the Wild don't have a ready-made pipeline of right-shot defensemen poised to make the NHL next season. David Spacek (six points in 41 AHL games) and Kyle Masters (three points in 18 AHL games) are making their pro debuts at ages 21 and 20, respectively. They both seem a long way off. So what's the harm in re-upping Bogosian?
From what we've learned in the Wild's recent past: that depends.
We can assume Bogosian is willing to make the kind of low-cost but longer-term deal that Guerin tends to dish out to these veterans. Bogosian is playing in the last year of a three-year deal he signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Is he going to be willing to take a near-minimum salary with the kind of minimal job security a one-year deal affords a player? That's unclear.
But the Wild have to keep costs low next season. Their twin Parise and Suter hammers aren't going away until the summer of 2025. Their cap situation will presumably worsen with Jared Spurgeon returning from Long-Term Injured Reserve. It'd be easy for Guerin to fall back into his habit of giving a multi-year deal to someone like Bogosian to shave down the dollars and maximize any flexibility for next year.
As good as Bogosian's been, it's instructive to remember that Tampa Bay was extremely willing to give Bogosian away in the last year of his contract. The Wild might have literally gotten lightning in a bottle with a bounce-back season. But can they expect that to continue? History says no. Bogosian has been one of the very worst defensemen in the league for some time now. Even a relatively strong stretch with Minnesota can't paper over this truth when you look at his last three seasons.
According to the Kenny Rogers model for running an NHL franchise, Minnesota is approaching the time to walk away and the time to run from Bogosian. With the way they've found players on the margins, it might even be preferable to try and find the next Bogosian rather than bet on a one-year extension.
It's easy to point to the contracts the Wild gave these veteran players that later burned them. We already pointed those out. But it's just as instructive to look at the bargain players the Wild didn't extend and see if they've ever been burned by inaction.
As far as we can tell, no. The New York Rangers have dropped Bonino this season. Kulikov has been a bottom-25 defenseman in terms of SPAR these past two seasons. Steel's put up a pedestrian seven goals and 18 points for the Dallas Stars. The consensus is that the Wild dodged a bullet by letting Reaves go to the Toronto Maple Leafs for three years. Is anyone treating Sundqvist, who signed a one-year $775K deal with the St. Louis Blues and has 21 points in 58 games, like the one who got away?
Ideally, the Wild will rely on their superpower of successfully cycling through cheap players. If Guerin instead extends Bogosian for one year, you can at least give him a bit of credit for stepping in the right direction. But if we see another multi-year deal to yet another veteran having a production spike out-of-line with recent history, we'll have to start wondering just how many more times this front office can get burned before learning their lessons.
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