When Bill Guerin bought out franchise players Zach Parise and Ryan Suter in July 2021, the team knew it was diving into “salary cap hell.” The $14,743,588 penalty for buying out Suter and Parise through the 2024-25 season is steep. Compared to other NHL teams, it basically condemned the Wild to play with one hand behind their back.
In the years since the acquisitions, the Wild have failed to make it past the first round and missed the playoffs last season. Fans have been waiting for the magical summer when the cap hits from the Parise and Suter deals go from $14,743,588 to $1,666,666.
The Wild have the freedom to spend money and add a bevy of top-tier talent in free agency to complement their future prospects. The problem is that the Wild no longer have that option.
They already spent that money.
Minnesota might have had a lot of money to spend if it hadn’t been limited to so many players. Suddenly, the Wild have $72 million or $73 million, depending on the amount of Brock Faber’s extension tied to 15 players for the 2025-26 season. That’s more than 80% of the salary cap. A standard NHL roster has at least 20 players.
The Wild have $45.44 million tied up in just nine players and the small cap space that Parise and Suter opt out of for the 2026-27 season. The most troubling part? That figure doesn’t include Kirill Kaprizov and Faber, who are not under contract for that season.
Minnesota has opted to lock down depth players with long-term deals that impact the salary cap relative to those players’ value. The combination of Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, Freddy Gaudreau and Yakov Trenin up front, plus the contract extension Jake Middleton just signed on defense, will cost the Wild $17.95 million over the next three years. All of those contracts, plus Hartman’s, are 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 that be based on their skill set).
The Wild will have Marcus Johansson, who will be leaving the roster next season for $2 million, Jon Merrill for another $1.2 million and Marc-Andre Fleury for $2.5 million. That’s almost $6 million dedicated to those veterans.
So, add that $6 million to the other $13,076,922 in buyouts and we have almost $20 million to spend. Wow! Instead of watching free agency from the sidelines and making small signings, the Wild, who are watching free agency from the sidelines, are going out and signing some big-name players and bringing the Stanley Cup back to the State of Hockey.
If only.
That could have been the reality for Minnesota. Instead, the Wild have opted to set aside a large portion of their money. While the Wild will have nearly $20 million in cap space, the team still needs to make more moves.
Faber’s extension will be at least $8 million per year. For the sake of argument, 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 contract and will be worth at least $1 million or $2 million. He’s a strong player who can play both ways and projects to have a good season and is a valuable prospect. Perhaps the Wild want to give him a longer-term deal and have to pay him more. Those two players will likely combine for at least $10 million.
That leaves the team with $10 million. While Fleury will have retired by then, the Wild must sign promising goaltender Jesper Wallstedt to a new contract. I have no idea how much or how well Wallstedt will play, but Minnesota’s goalie of the future can command a significant salary.
If we assume Wallstedt plays well and the Wild want to keep him (they better!), he should cost somewhere between $2-3 million on a short-term deal. That’s another small chunk of money lost. Assuming Wallstedt plays well, Minnesota will have about $7 million in cap space.
Marco Rossi is the final piece of this salary puzzle. If the Wild don’t trade him, he should get a raise. Hockey Wilderness projected him to make between $2.5 million and $4.5 million for two to three years, a bridge deal.
If the Wild trade Rossi, the player they get in return will cost that amount or more. Rossi will be on the high side of that range or more if he plays well. Assuming Rossi does very well as the hard-working player he has proven to be and gets a deal for $4 million, that leaves the Wild with $3 million in cap space.
Perhaps some of those numbers are lower, but not by much. At most, the Wild could have around $6 million, the same amount the team has available in Parise and Suter Cap Hell.
The team could look to move some of those contracts, but Guerin likes “his guys.” Fans and pundits can speculate on how to move contracts like those of Johansson, Foligno and Gaudreau, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Guerin values locker room chemistry and other intangibles. Management sees Middleton as an integral part of the locker room and culture that Guerin values. I have no idea how that factors into Guerin deciding how much more money these guys deserve.
Another side effect of long-term depth pieces is that the Wild are preventing their elite group of prospects from reaching the NHL. The Wild tend to bring in prospects slowly and force them to prove themselves in the AHL and bottom-six spots rather than putting them in positions where they can succeed.
How will the Wild work with all these prospects with the bottom six spots locked up? The team isn’t comfortable with youngsters playing in the top six, and there are no bottom six spots left, so where will they go?
On defense, the Wild just signed an excellent two-way defender in Zeev Buium. On the left side, the Wild have Jonas Brodin and Middleton. Will the team limit Buium to a third-pairing role or pay Middleton $4.35 million?
I’m not saying the Wild should never sign long-term contracts. I love the contracts of Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek. On those contracts, those players bring tremendous value to the Wild. Eriksson Ek and Boldy are worth their contracts and more. Winning teams have those types of contracts for their players.
Last year, the Wild prematurely re-signed Foligno, Hartman, Gaudreau, Merill, Mats Zuccarello and Johansson. All of them had down years and failed to live up to the value of their contracts.
Now, the Wild are “hoping” that this group of veterans will start playing better and everything will take care of itself. That’s not a solution or a plan; it’s wishful thinking.
But that’s all they can do. Changing contracts is expensive and many of these guys have no-change clauses.
In need of a change, the Wild doubled down on what was already wrong.
All stats and data via CapFriendly (RIP) unless otherwise noted.
