The Minnesota Wild have re-signed winger Kirill Kaprizov to a five-year, $45MM contract. The deal carries a $9MM average annual value and takes him through the 2025-26 season. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports that the deal carries a no-movement clause for the final two years. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports the full salary breakdown:
- 2021-22: $5.0MM
- 2022-23: $10.0MM
- 2023-24: $12.5MM
- 2024-25: $10.0MM
- 2025-26: $7.5MM
Minnesota had to wait five years after they drafted Kaprizov to see him in NHL action, but all can agree that he was worth the wait. This year’s Calder Trophy winner, Kaprizov was nearly a point-per-game talent. Playing over 18 minutes a night, the 23-year-old Russian led the Wild with 27 goals and 51 points, only missing one game all year. The Athletic’s Michael Russo reports that he’s due to arrive in Minnesota tomorrow and will deliver an in-person press conference pending vaccination status.
A full training camp and another year of acclimation to North America are both good omens for Kaprizov’s performance in 2021-22. A dominant scorer and a lethal power-play presence, Kaprizov aims to not only lead the Wild but to be one of the best talents in the Western Conference. Kaprizov put together a remarkable two-way performance for a rookie last season as well, posting a 51.2% Corsi for at even strength and boasted impressive advanced analytics as well. Steps forward in any regard will solidify his status as an elite talent and quickly make this deal worth its price tag.
The move comes after months of negotiations and nervousness on the part of Wild fans. The term and the dollar amount aren’t necessarily a surprise to anyone who’s been closely following the situation, however. A $9MM cap hit was reported as the likely value by The Athletic’s Michael Russo weeks beforehand.
Despite all the fanfare made about Minnesota’s salary cap situation this offseason following the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, the Wild still remain in decent shape for 2021-22. Kaprizov was the only remaining restricted free agent on the roster, and they’re still left with $3.2MM in space considering a 22-man roster. The true crunch comes next season, where the cap penalty due to the buyouts increases by a full $8MM.
Regardless, it’s an immediate relief for Wild fans, who’ll have five more years (in all likelihood) of a player who captured the eyes and hearts of many this season. Expected to be a franchise cornerstone moving forward, the Wild now look to push even further towards contention.
All salary cap figures courtesy of CapFriendly.com.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Images.
So basically what everyone was calling for the entire time.
Had to be the No Movement that held this up after they sorted out the term
51 career points.
Makes more than Sid.
Right? Little much In my books. I’d take Sid any day.
It is important to note that Sid’s contract was 14.5% of the salary cap at the time of signing, Kaprizov’s is 11%.
Nuance. Love to see it.
How many career points did Sid have at the time? How many Art Ross? How many Hart? How many Pearson? How many Cups? He’d won all of them by that point.
51 points.
For a while, the league had an unofficial cap that kept Sid and Ovie at the top and these things called bridge deals, but…here we are.
That’s what leverage gives to players.
Thank you, I thought I was only one thinking that this is huge aav for a guy who wasn’t even a point per game winger and only has 51 games in his career. This will put him up with the highest paid wingers in entire NHL, making close to or more than wingers like Kane, Kucherov, Rantanen, Marchand, Pasta, and that’s not even getting into the centers he’s being paid more than or right around.
And Fiala leaves after next season due to the 10million dollar cap penalty
Well, hopefully they catch lightning in a bottle an have a great run this year, because the monster cap hits due to the Parise/Suter contract buyouts are going to utterly kill any team momentum the three years following.
Does anyone on here actually look at the payroll outlook over the next 4 years and the cap space that the Wild will have? They have the core of the team under contract for the next 2 years, minus Fiala and Greenway. Both who have a great chance of being traded away this year. The only real possible trouble year is that 4th year where they only have Kaprizov, Eriksson-Ek, Spurgeon and Brodin signed. And that’s the time that players such as Boldy (actually year 3), Rossi, Beckman, Lambos, O’Rourke and Hunt would be hitting RFA. In other words, their next contracts will all basically be bridge deals, unless they have become super stars already, and will not be huge contracts anyways. The only difficult part is that 4th year, when Foligno and Hartman become FAs again. But the Wild have plenty of cap space to not only keep their own players, but have the chance to sign needed FAs as well.
Next year they lose Fiala (I still believe he will be traded), Rask (YES!), Greenway (again, probably traded away)Bjugstad, Sturm, Goligoski, Benn and Merrill. Besides Fiala, I think most of those players are easily replaced. And the cap will start going back up as well, to the point that, as it sits today, the Wild will have almost $20 million to replace those players. Yeah, they aren’t going to sign any FAs at $10 mil a year. And this plan is set with the need for players like Boldy, Rossi, Addison, Beckman, etc…to pan out. But isn’t that the reason your draft players and develop them?
@Gus Leggett – MIN will not be in good shape for several years, even looking forward to eventually expiring contracts. Here’s some of the ugly, courtesy of our friends at CapFriendly:
Dead $$$ breakdowns:
2021-2022 = $4.74MM
2022-2023 = $12.74MM
2023-2024 = $14.74MM
2024-2025 = $14.74MM
2025-2026 = $1.67MM
2026-2027 = $1.67MM
I suspect more than a few of those expiring contracts will be League minimum replacements, for at least a couple of years. And, regarding the “optimism” of the cap going up sooner, due to warm butts in the seats and the TV deals, you may want to read this article:
Reference – link to pensionplanpuppets.com
what’s this trading Greenway?? Man dudes a huge power forward. In 2 years he hits his Breakout Threshold at around the 400 game mark (for the bigger fellas). Teams know these things. His point totals will most likely take a jump. Even if they don’t a 40-50 point power forward that lays the body is a super useful guy. I honestly can’t see them trading him but who knows. Are there rumors about it out of curiosity?
Huh, never saw that article before. Thank you for posting it, we pretty damn informative. So, I have to go back on thinking the cap will grow all that much. But I tend to be an optimist, so I will just stick with the possible cap growth #s in that article. But the point I am trying to make is that is it not the death knell to the Wild that everyone thinks it is. A lot of those spots will be filled by younger guys on contracts that are at, or even less, than $1 million a year. The guys I listed are just starting their first contracts with 23 years on them (except Boldy who only has 2 years left). Now I am not saying the Wild will have no problems with the cap over the next 4 years, but it’s not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Just take Year 4, with that articles possible cap growth being $3 million more in cap than this year, the Wild would have about $42 million to fill 15 roster spots. Yeah, they won’t be signing any FAs that are running $7 mil+, but they will be able to balance it out with contracts that run from $5 mil to $1 mil. Guys playing bottom 6 roles shouldn’t be on $3 mil+ contracts. That’s just wasteful. It’s just that it should not be considered all doom and gloom for the Wild’s cap space. It’s workable…it’s going to be tight, but it will still be workable.
I just see Greenway as a tradable piece. If in 2 years he is hitting his peak (which would last for a couple more years) and hasn’t been traded, I’ll be tickled pink. But when it comes to trading, you have to give something up to get something. Say Fiala is never traded then and Adam Beckman is proving that he will be a very good NHLer. I can see Boldy moving into Greenway’s spot on the GEM line and Beckman slotted in on a line with Fiala, making Greenway expendable in a trade to get something else that the Wild need. Watching an interview with Guerin last night and he is all in bring young guys onto the roster in Top 6 spots if they earn it. If Beckman can become a 25-35 goal scorer in the NHL, someone has to be replaced, and as it sits right now, I view Greenway as the most likely player, since he has never had more than 12 goals in the NHL. I don’t view Greenway as a 25-35 goal scorer. As for rumors, there were some last year that Greenway was coming up in discussions for trades, but nothing mounted to much…but when there’s smoke, there’s generally fire…
All add this, this is what I am looking at as a way to early lineup…
Zuccarello/Rossi/Kaprizov
Fiala/Hartman/Boldy
Greenway/Eriksson-EK/Foligno
Sturm/Gaudreau/Bjugstad (with Rask in the press box)