The Minnesota Wild lost in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Vegas Golden Knights last year. They entered the offseason with one big question that remains unanswered. Wild superstar Kirill Kaprizov declined a $128 million deal, but general manager Bill Guerin is remaining confident. He spoke with Joe Smith and Michael Russo of The Athletic after the Kaprizov report dropped.
“We are still having ongoing talks.” Guerin said, “We love Kirill. We want to keep him here. I have a good relationship with his agent, and we are still in talks. We’re not panicking or anything. This is just part of negotiations.”
Guerin continued, “My job as general manager is to protect my players, and I don’t want this stuff in the public eye. That’s the way we’d like to keep it, so I’m not commenting any further on it. But I will say this: We absolutely want to keep Kirill in Minnesota.”
Kaprizov is entering his sixth season in the league, and the final year of his five-year, $45 million contract. That $9 million average annual value came after just his rookie season, which was unprecedented at the time. Now, he is looking for another unprecedented deal before hitting unrestricted free agency.
The Wild are prepared to make Kaprizov the highest-paid player of the salary cap era. If Kaprizov does not want to stay, it would be a huge blow to their Stanley Cup chances. But if he stays on a similar deal, they should be building to contend in the Western Conference for years to come.
Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported that the Wild were “a little bit surprised” by Kaprizov declining the deal. He also reported that he does not believe Kaprizov is interested in a short-term deal on the 32 Thoughts Podcast. The insider theorized that there are teams out there ready to pay Kaprizov more than $128 million if he makes it to unrestricted free agency next year.
