The Minnesota Wild are coming off their most successful regular season in franchise history. Despite another first round exit in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the team is poised to compete in the coming years.
Their core is strong, with enough young talent to see sustained success going forward. However, one key piece of the puzzle that the Wild may have a hard time keeping around is forward Kevin Fiala.
Fiala is coming off a one year, $5.1 million deal and is a restricted free agent. The winger is 25 years old and scored 33 goals and 85 points in 82 games this season. He's a great skater and an exciting player to watch, with strong puck control and good playmaking ability.
Fiala has taken major steps since being acquired by the Wild from the Nashville Predators at the 2019 trade deadline. Given his success over the last few seasons since joining the Wild though, along with his performance this season specifically, Fiala's contract extension won't come cheap. He could potentially demand a long-term contract worth up to $8 million per year.
This presents a major issue for the Wild, who are in a really bad spot cap-wise. Minnesota has over $75 million already on their payroll with 18 contracts accounted for. This leaves the team with under $7.5 million in cap space for five more players. Keep in mind that Marc-Andre Fleury is an unrestricted free agent. Unless the team is prepared to go with Cam Talbot as a starter next season and find a cheap backup, they'll need to reserve some of that remaining space for a goaltender.
Wild Must Find a Way to Re-Sign Kevin Fiala
A massive factor for the lack of cap space were the buyouts for Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. Their combined buyout penalties will count for more than $12.5 million against the cap next season. There is nothing Minnesota can do about it. It's also not like that's a problem that goes away soon. In the two years that follow the 2022-23 season, that combined buyout penalty will rise to more than $14.5 million.
It's a massive issue for the Wild. It means that if they're going to be able to find cap space for Fiala, they'll have to move out other players.
The ideal option would be to move out Cam Talbot's $3.67 million cap. If the Wild opt to go that route, they also have to invest in a different goalie anyways. Getting Talbot's cap hit off the books wouldn't create enough space. They would have to make other moves as well.
Wild Most Likely Contract to Lose
The most realistic way of keeping Fiala would be moving out a quality player on a big contract.
Matt Dumba's name comes to mind, though moving him would be a hit to Minnesota's blue line. Dumba averaged over 23 minutes per game with the Wild this season and scored 27 points in 57 games. The 27-year-old defenseman has a single year remaining on his contract at a $6 million cap hit.
Dumba does have a 10-team no-trade list but that's far from full trade protection. Minnesota's cap situation doesn't look great over the next few seasons. They may not be able to re-sign Dumba anyways. So, it could be worthwhile to move him for quality assets this offseason in order to keep Fiala.
Another way to keep Fiala could be to consider moving Mats Zuccarello. It seems like a pretty counterproductive decision considering Zuccarello is coming off a career year. He scored 24 goals and 79 points in 70 games. However, Zuccarello will be 35 years old in September. There's a chance that his excellent production this season could end up as an outlier. Even away from a possible decline based on age, he's also been posting very a high shooting percentage. That comes despite his chemistry with Kirill Kaprizov, He could see his production drop back next season.
While the Wild are in a window to compete right now, they should also be looking a couple years down the road. The reality is Fiala will be able to provide a larger impact to the franchise long-term. Zuccarello's no-movement clause becomes just a 10-team no-trade list for next season.
That means if the Wild wanted to make the move, there's a good chance they'd be able to. It would also mean capitalizing on his value while it's at its highest, getting back some great assets in return. This isn't to say it should be a clear decision to move Zuccarello by any means, but it's another potential option the organization could consider.
No matter what decision Minnesota decides to make, the reality is they're almost certainly going to lose an important player this offseason. They're also in a position where they will likely have to take back future assets in any trade, which doesn't really make sense for them, given they're currently a competitive team. Their cap situation is a major concern and while this is very much the team's time to compete, their roster will take a hit.
That said, given Fiala's age and production, keeping him should be a priority and the team needs to do what it takes to re-sign him.
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