With the offseason in full swing aside from the two teams in the Stanley Cup Final, it’s time to examine what each squad will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at the Wild.
This past season was an interesting one for the Wild. They were one of the top scoring teams in the NHL and knowing the cap adventure that lies ahead (more on that shortly), GM Bill Guerin made some moves to add at the deadline in the hopes of a long playoff run. Instead, despite finishing fifth overall in points during the regular season, they were ousted in the opening round by St. Louis. Now, Guerin has some work to do to be able to keep as much of this core together as possible which is the focal point of Minnesota’s checklist.
Free Up Cap Space
It’s not as if Guerin hasn’t known this was going to be at the top of his list at some point. It would have been the case had they not bought out Ryan Suter and Zach Parise and it still is the case with them being bought out as their dead cap charge went up by $4MM for each player. That’s hard for any team to overcome. And that’s not the total charge, that’s just the increase; the total is over $12MM for next season. (If you want to look ahead a year, it goes up by another $1MM each in the 2023 offseason as well; this isn’t just a one-time situation to navigate through.)
At the moment, Minnesota has a little over $7MM in cap space with which to sign multiple forwards, a defenseman, and a second goaltender. That, on its own, might not sound so bad but once you factor in who some of those players are – that list comprises the rest of their checklist – it’s considerably worse.
It’s not as if there are some contracts that are well above market value on their books but $12MM in dead space is going to be very difficult to overcome. A small move or two to free up some extra wiggle room could be the difference in whether they can keep a key player or not. There’s a lot at stake as a result.
Sign Or Trade Fiala
If you read the above and immediately thought of Kevin Fiala, you certainly won’t be alone. The winger has been in trade speculation going back to last summer with this exact situation in mind.
If the two sides would have been able to work out a long-term agreement last summer, that might have been enough to put an end to that speculation. Instead, Minnesota took the rare step of pre-emptively filing for arbitration before eventually settling on a $5.1MM salary for this past season. Fiala then went and had a career year, picking up 33 goals and 52 assists in 82 games, all career highs. Overall, the Wild received really good value on that deal but things are only going to go downhill from here for them.
Fiala is now a year away from unrestricted free agency and while the Wild can’t take him to arbitration again, he can take them to a hearing, get a nice raise from the arbitrator, and hit the open market in 2023 in the prime of his career. A long-term deal could approach the $7.5MM to $8MM range and while Guerin probably wouldn’t mind giving that to him, they’d have to part with another core player to make that happen. At this point, it seems likely that the 25-year-old will be traded.
While Fiala doesn’t have a no-trade clause, he holds the hammer on this front as well. Fiala on a long-term contract has a lot more value than Fiala on a one-year deal. Teams can’t put conditional draft picks in a trade that are dependent on whether or not he signs either. Guerin will need to work hard to get maximum value for Fiala (likely in the form of futures or young roster players) but will also have to work hard with the pending RFA to find a suitor that he’s willing to forego the open market to sign with. There’s a lot of work to do on this front in a short period of time.
Sign Second Goalie
Guerin surprised some with the acquisition of Marc-Andre Fleury at the trade deadline in an effort to give them a second proven veteran goaltender for the playoffs. He was a little better down the stretch than he was with Chicago and that got him most of the playing time against the Blues. While it may have seemed like this was just a short-term pickup, Guerin has expressed a firm desire to keep Fleury around to split time with Cam Talbot next season.
While it’s certainly fair to say that Fleury will get considerably less than the $7MM AAV he had on his expiring contract, he still should have enough interest out there to get half of that price tag. Even if Fiala moves for futures, Minnesota can’t afford Fleury at that price tag. They have two options on that front. One is to try to move a current roster player for someone making less and use those savings to afford Fleury’s new deal. The other is to work out an incentive-laden deal that gives them the ability to roll over the bonuses onto the 2023-24 cap. Of course, with the dead money going up, that’s only pushing the problem over, not fixing it.
If they’re unable to keep Fleury, Guerin will need to be aggressive on the open market for a replacement with Kaapo Kahkonen now in San Jose. Talbot will turn 35 next month and while he’s still a capable NHL goaltender, he’s not someone that can handle 60-plus games next season. They’ll need a fairly strong second option, one that will be able to play 30 or more games. That will put them looking in the high-$2MM/low-$3MM range even if it isn’t Fleury. Jesper Wallstedt is their goalie of the future but he’s a few years away from being NHL-ready. They need to add another NHL option in the meantime over the coming weeks.
Re-Sign Middleton
The player Minnesota received in the Kahkonen trade, defenseman Jacob Middleton, is also in need of a new contract. He’s a restricted free agent with salary arbitration rights and is a year away from UFA eligibility. This is one of those situations where finding fair value is going to be a challenge.
Middleton has just 80 career NHL games under his belt, 66 of which came this season. Heading into the year, he was a candidate for a deal around the $1MM range but after a strong showing with both the Sharks and Wild, he’s going to get more. If it gets to an arbitrator, the award could be tricky to pin down because of the limited experience but that doesn’t give Guerin the hammer by any stretch since a low-ball offer could force Middleton to file for arbitration and see what his value is on the open market next summer.
A long-term contract doesn’t seem likely at this point given his limited track record but a deal that buys out a couple of UFA years could be doable. The AAV would likely jump over $2MM in that situation but it would be a justifiable price. Of course, the longer the contract, the harder it will be to fit the other pieces of the puzzle in from a salary cap perspective. Middleton’s case isn’t as prominent as some of the others but it has to stay in the back of Guerin’s mind as he works his way through Fiala’s eventual trade and finding a second netminder.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
User 318310488
Rebuild.
fljay73
Just go younger. Trade Fiala & Dumba. Acquire some more picks & try to lock in some remaining younger players to more than bridge deals.
Nha Trang
About 95% of the time, I’m disagreeing with WP, but not here. They’re really pretty much screwed for the next three seasons anyway. Time to blow it up: unload Zuccarello, unload Foligno, unload Spurgeon — all those players who’ll be too old by the time the dead money clears out. Then sure, do sign Fiala, because they’ll have the money by then to do it, and he’ll still be in his prime by 2025. Collect all those nice picks and young prospects, and tell your fan base better times will be ahead.
And for the love of heaven NEVER AGAIN OFFER A MAX TERM CONTRACT TO *ANYONE*, I don’t care whom.
Jerry Cantrell
As the owners, we haven’t decided what the heck we are going to do about the Wild this off-season.
Sincerely,
every member of the St Louis Blues
fljay73
Easier said than done to blow it up.
Either you are retaining salary, doing a few more buyouts or taking back other bad contracts.
Trade Fiala & Dumba for some prospects & picks. Stay away from doing anymore buyouts & look into swapping out similar contracts if needed to address holes in the roster.
Zakis
A rebuild won’t happen as long as Leipold owns the team. Plus, Zuccarello, Spurgeon, Brodin and inexplicably Goligoski have NMC’s making it all the more difficult to move them and get something of value. Foligno brings value to the team as the de facto captain, but to me the one to move RIGHT NOW is Hartman. Had a career year on a contract he easily outperformed this year and Rossi will hopefully be able to jump in and center Kaprizov and Zuccarello. But knowing how GMBG seems to operate, Hartman will stay because of his size and grit and now regress.
Nha Trang
Depends. How much do you figure the likes of Zuccarello or Spurgeon might want to waive their NMCs once they get that the team’s rebuilding, and that if they want to play for a Cup winner before their careers end it isn’t going to be in Minnesota?
Agree on Hartman, though. Extremely team friendly contract, career year, 27 years old already, there’ll be some sucker out there who’ll overpay for him. If Jeremy-F’n-Lauzon can go for a 2nd rounder, Hartman’s good for a 1st and change.
Johnny Z
Just surrender to the dead cap and trade Fiala for a top 7 1st, NHLer and a prospect. Then trade Dumba for a young promising D and a pick.
DarkSide830
Could’ve avoided this by just trying to salary dump Suter and Parise, but what do I know.
Fljay073
Should have just bought out Parise & kept Suter. Doing 2 big buyouts in one fell swoop just doubled the dead cap hits. If they are not resigning Fiala or Dumba long term then they have to go for some controllable assets & picks.
doghockey
MN fans continue to be among the most amusing clan in hockey. Pretending that they have hockey knowledge because they were born in a place where water freezes. Trade this guy!!! Don’t trade this guy!!! It’s fun to watch the rubes babble their_-wannabe-gm-stuff!!!
Nha Trang
So go ahead — says this fan who’s never been closer than a plane ride to Minnesota — show us how wise and smart you are. What would YOU do?
Gus Leggett
DH, as a lifelong Minnesotan who has played and coached hockey, I think more people from here understand the ins and outs of a hockey program then you ever will.
And there really is a simple way for the Wild to not only open up more cap space, but possibly improve the roster as well. Yes, trade Fiala, preferably bring back a 1st Rd pick and a young Dman that is NHL ready. Thinking Ottawa…Fiala for the 7th pick and Jake Sanderson. Then trade Dumba for a good pick. If they can get a 1st Rd for him, more power to BG. Sell off Greenway, Jost and Kulikov for futures. Sign Vincent Trocheck to center Zuccarello and Kaprizov. Hartman moves to RW with Boldy/Rossi. Gaudreau replaces Greenway at LW with Eriksson-Ek/Foligno. Sign Middleton and Fleury. By getting rid of Fiala, Dumba, Greenway, Jost and Kulikov, the Wild get to about $19 mil in cap space, making it possible to sign Trocheck, Middleton and Fleury. And after those signings, the Wild should be sitting around $6-7 mil of cap space to fill out the 4th line, which will probably cost around $5 mil, with the likes of Duhaime, Dewar and Deslauriers. So there is a way to improve the roster and get cap space. Just depends on if Guerin can actually make these types of moves.