The Minnesota Wild have signed restricted free agent Hunter Warner to a one-year two-way contract. The deal will carry a $700K salary in the NHL. Warner was not eligible for salary arbitration.
Warner, 23, was signed as an undrafted free agent out of the USHL in 2014 where he was a menace on defense. Racking up 125 penalty minutes in just 43 games for the Fargo Force, that physicality has continued through the rest of his junior career and into the minor leagues. Playing for the Iowa Wild the last few years Warner has totaled just 18 points in 165 games but was a core piece in 2018-19 when the team made the Calder Cup playoffs for the first time.
With Warner signed the Wild now have just three restricted free agents left to sign. At least two of them, Kevin Fiala and Joel Eriksson Ek are important pieces of the NHL roster and will hopefully find some common ground with the front office over the next month. That front office of course is without a leader at the moment after Paul Fenton’s early dismissal.