Welcome to tenthousandsports.com. My friends and I plan to bring you some unique insights into the the Minnesota Wild and the NHL as a whole. With the first game of the Wild’s season less than a day away it seems like an appropriate time to reflect on the last year and look to the future.
Depending on your point of view this offseason was either marred or crowned with the announcement that longtime Wild stars Zach Parise and Ryan Suter had their contracts bought out and that they would be leaving the organization. I couldn’t help but agree with my fellow fans who saw this as a step in the right direction. Potential issues with the salary cap loomed before the Wild and Parise and Suter no longer carried the team. In short they weren’t worth the money. Who is worth the money though?
The Wild parted ways with a number of their higher paid players over the offseason. The Wild bought out Parise and Suter. Marcus Johansson joined Carson Soucy on the NHL’s newest team, the Seattle Kraken. Nick Bonino left the Wild for the San Jose Sharks. Among others Devon Plantana of The Hockey Writers noted that Bonino was the only reliable faceoff winner on the Wild’s roster for a good part of the season.
As illustrated above Parise and Suter had an identical cap hit which combined was just over $15 million in 2020. Each contract was worth 10.3% of the Wild’s total 2020-2021 salary cap paid to skaters. In other words over a fifth of the salary going to skaters was for Suter and Parise alone. How well did the two of them perform for that money? While points alone do not adequately quantify the value of a player, it is one of the best simple stats (we’re ignoring sabermetrics like Corsi) to use in a vacuum. Of course defenders, especially one way defenders like Ian Cole, and players who get injured are underrepresented. It is also worth mentioning that Ryan Suter’s defensive skills were valuable throughout 2020-2021. It is unfair to lump him in with Parise in all things.
Crammed together in nearly identical spots on our 2020-2021 points-salary graph are Suter and Parise. If not for Spurgeon’s signing bonus Parise and Suter would be the most expensive players on the roster by a decent margin. With lackluster offensive numbers and both players continuing to age and slow down, paying out their contracts was the sensible move.
Unsurprisingly the best value-per-point comes from young Russian phenom Kirill Kaprizov. His performance last year was videogamesque and the graph helps illustrate that Kaprizov was in a league of his own. Kevin Fiala and Mats Zuccarello also had fantastic years. Zuccarello only played 42 games but he was the one offensive star from the more expensive side of the points-salary graph. The Wild found great offensive value in Fiala, Joel Eriksson Ek (simply Eriksson for our graphs), and Jordan Greenway as well. Greenway scored four more points in the 2020-2021 season (32) than the year before (28) despite during a shortened season. Good linemates no doubt contributed to Greenway’s success, but last year Greenway also became a better-rounded player. He still is not a goal scorer but his physicality and his ability to setup goals still make him a force to be reckoned with.
The Wild’s biggest deal of the summer was re-signing Eriksson Ek to an eight-year deal. Initially, I was afraid that the Wild were repeating their mistakes with the Parise and Suter deals that were too long and expensive. However, Eriksson Ek is only 24 years old and the he is only going to make $5.25 million a year. Given that He will be the top line center this was a good move on the Wild’s part. There is always potential for a step backwards but Eriksson Ek’s upside, something very visible in last year’s playoffs series against Las Vegas, makes him more than worth the money. The Wild also resigned Fiala to a $5.1 million one-year deal to avoid arbitration. The Wild also retain a good number of good performers with moderate to moderately-high veteran pay like Victor Rask and Jonas Brodin who appear next to each other on the 2020-2021 graph.
Contrast last year’s points to salary graph with this year’s graph. High performers were rewarded and overpaid players departed over the offseason which left us with a graph that is much more linear. Kaprizov got his pay day and his long term deal. Often the league’s best players come out guns blazing in their rookie year and continue to perform. Kirill is the first Wild player since Marian Gaborik that deserves to be counted among the leagues superstars. Second seasons in any sports league are often tough though as the league adjusts to young stars. I will not be surprised or worried if Kaprizov scores fewer points on average this year.
Included on the graph are Suter and Parise. The ghosts of bad deals can haunt a franchise in more serious ways than weak play from aging players. While they are no longer on the roster Suter and Parise’s combined cap hit for this year exceeds the combined salary for the Wild’s two goalies, Kaapo Kahkonen and Cam Talbot. In fact, Parise and Suter will individually contribute to the Wild’s salary cap more than 10 other players with the team. This group of 10 includes Jordan Greenway.
Thankfully the Wild have compensated for Suter and Parise’s dead cap space by signing short deals for smaller amounts with a number of players. The Wild signed Alex Gogligoski, Dmitry Kulikov, Jordie Benn, and Jon Merrill over the offseason and that is just a list of the defensemen that they picked up. Wild fans have the right to be worried about the Wild’s defense. The team scrambled to sign these defensemen in the hope that some of them will be good. I am particularly concerned about the likely third defensive pair of Benn/Kulikov or Merrill/Kulikov.
Largely untested new blood comes to the Wild’s forward lines in the form of Frederick Gaudreau, Rem Pitlick and Brandon Duhaime. This is the first time Duhaime, drafted by the Wild in 2016, will play in the NHL. Gaudreau has not had an impressive career thus far. He’s had a hard time staying out of the minors. The sole encouraging parts of his NHL record are the 10 points (2 G/ 8 A) he managed to score last year in 19 games with the Penguins. Gaudreau will also be competing with Rem Pitlick for the fourth center spot on the roster. Pitlick is originally from Plymouth, Minnesota and spent his college years with the Gophers. Rem did not plan to return to Minnesota so soon; the Wild took him off waivers from the Nashville Predators earlier this month.
The Wild have a little over $3 million in cap space. It is not a lot of room to move around but there are always way to free up space. Keep an eye on who the Wild re-sign over the course of the season because Fiala, Rask, Greenway, Bjugstad, Sturm, Pitlick, Goligoski, Benn, Merrill, and Kahkonen are all entering the final or only year of their deal. Kahkonen, Fiala, Pitlick and Greenway will be restricted free agents which gives the Wild a bit more leverage.
That all being said, it is time to rejoice because another year of NHL hockey is upon us. Make sure to check tenthousandsports.com for a fresh take on the Wild and the wider NHL action.