Minnesota Wild prepared to offer Kirill Kaprizov massive contract extension
Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov has two seasons left on his contract, set to make $9 million annually. Needless to say, the Wild have made it very clear, they have no plans for him to test the market and once he's eligible to sign a contract extension in July, talks with begin.
Wild owner Craig Leipold recently met with The Athletic's Michael Russo and made some very interesting comments about what to expect out from the organization.
I will tell you nobody will offer more money than us, or longer. So all we have to do is prove to him that we want to win. So what does he want? He wants to win. So we have to prove to not only to him, but to other UFAs that we also want to win. And we're used to winning. This is the State of Hockey, and we're going to get back to the winning ways. We’re going to get a perennial playoff team, but it does start with Kirill. He's going to be the focus of what we’re going to do. We plan to re-sign him.
GM Bill Guerin has had his hands tied the past few years, dealing with the dead money of buyouts for Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. This $14 million converts to just $1.6 million the next three seasons, so that's certainly going to give Guerin some flexibility to sign a couple of impact players next summer. Which should be music to Kaprizov's ears, as he just wants to win.
It's also in the Wild's favor that the salary cap is projected to go up to $92.5 million in 2025-26 and could eventually hit $100 million by 2027. Leipold knows Guerin had to get out of those big contracts and can't wait to see what his executive can pull off with deeper pockets.
"Next July 1 is going to be like Christmas," Leipold said. "We're going to have money available. We're going to have the resources available to do what we need to do to get back to Wild hockey. And we're looking forward to that. We look at who could be available next year. You're going to ask me, who are those players? I won't tell you."
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