NHL Rumors: Canadiens and Wild Deal Off the Table

Montreal Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber has yet to play a game this season and finds himself on the trade rumor mill. Recently there's been a ton of discussions regarding Weber and his mega-contract and teams have reached out to the Canadiens about acquiring him to then be placed on long term injured reserve for some cap relief. According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, one team you can cross of the list of potential destinations - Minnesota Wild.

Friedman commented on the situation in his latest segment of 32 Thoughts and basically crossed the Wild out as a possibility:

A lot of feedback to our podcast bit about Shea Weber’s contract and whether or not it would make sense for Minnesota. The answer, according to several capologists consulted for this blog, is no — and don’t expect the Wild to do it. “You do not want to be in long-term injury, over the cap, for years and years,” one said. “There’s nothing good about that.” It prevents you from accruing space, robs you of flexibility. (I didn’t realize you can’t trade for a player on LTIR without activating him first. That would be problematic for most.) There is also the question of whether or not Minnesota could put together a full roster prior to putting Weber’s contract on long-term at the start of the season. So, what seemed like a creative idea was anything but that.

Weber has battled a number of injuries in the later stages of his career and it appears unfortunately his body has broken down too much to play. While an official retirement announcement has yet to come and to this point it's just been his teammates commenting on him hanging up the skates, it certainly feels like his playing days are behind him.

Weber's contract runs through the 2025-26 season with a cap hit of $7.85 million per season, meanwhile the actual cash is only $6 million this season, $3 million in 22/23 and then it goes down to only $1 million the final three years of the deal.

The Wild have buyouts to Ryan Suter and Zach Parise to worry about for the foreseeable future as next season they have $12.7 million in dead cap space to deal with, and this number goes up to $14.7 million for 23/24 and 24/25. Needless to say, don't expect the Wild to be very busy on the trade front as we approach the deadline on March 21.