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Wild have options to get better in 2024-25, just not a lot of them

John Shipley, Pioneer Press
·6 min read

The Wild would have enormous capacity to improve their team this offseason if it weren’t for that meddling dead cap space.

That will have to wait another year. In the meantime, general manager Bill Guerin believes he still can make his team a contender in 2024-25.

“We want to win now,” Guerin said Friday, a day after the 2023-24 season officially ended with a 4-3 loss to Seattle at Xcel Energy Center.

The Wild had been eliminated from the postseason for a little more than a week by then, marking the second time in 12 seasons they had missed the playoffs. Injuries were an issue in 2023-24; captain Jared Spurgeon played only 16 games, and key players such as Kirill Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin, Marcus Foligno, Matt Boldy and Mats Zuccarello all missed stretches. So was a 5-10-4 start that cost Dean Evason his job. And so was a handful of disappointing seasons from veterans.

But the biggest reason was something that isn’t going away this year, the $14.7 million in dead salary cap space the team carried this season, part of the penalty for buying out the identical 13-year, $98 million contracts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.

That cap hit was a big topic of discussion early because the Wild couldn’t afford to call up some of their higher-paid prospects until the team started getting long-term injury relief. The reality is the die already had been cast. Without veteran free-agent acquisitions, Minnesota spent the entire season relying on call-ups from the American League team in Des Moines.

By season’s end, players with little-to-no NHL experience were playing on special teams, including the league’s third-worst penalty kill.

As veteran winger Marcus Foligno said Friday, “You’re not gonna have these guys that come up from the AHL and fill in on the penalty kill and make it miraculously better. It’s not right for them to be put in that position.”

But they were because the Wild had no other choice, and it could happen again next season. Guerin wants to win now, but his capacity is limited to add veterans that might really help a team that finished with a minus-12 goals deficit.

And here it comes again, that $14.7 million dead cap hit. That shrinks to less than $1.6 million next season, but as Guerin said Friday, he wants to win now.

How?

“Obviously, if the cap goes up, we’ll have more money,” Guerin said. “I know everybody else will, too, but we can really use it. Like I said, we’ll do what we can. We’ll look at every possible option that we have, whether that’s free agency, trades, anything we can do to improve the team.”

The NHL salary cap is expected to rise from $83.5 million this season to $87.7 million for 2024-25, despite the fact that a lot of NHL teams are struggling with television contracts.

That extra cap space would really help.

Currently, the Wild have 15 players under one-way, NHL contracts for next season, plus Brock Faber and Marco Rossi, who just finished terrific rookie seasons and have one more year on their entry-level deals. Total cost is $64.13 million, which looks great without the addition of $14.7 million Guerin can’t spend. That brings the total to $78.8 million.

That could give Guerin roughly $9 million, minus a bit of cap cushion, to fill out a 23-man roster. He did a lot of work this season — signing veterans Foligno, Mats Zuccarello, Ryan Hartman, Zach Bogosian and Marc-Andre Fleury to extensions — and is hoping some of those spots can be taken by young, inexpensive prospects.

Rookie Declan Chisholm, a restricted free agent acquired from Winnipeg on waivers in December, seems a lock to start on the blue line, and forwards Marat Khusnutdinov and Liam Ohgren finished the season with the NHL club, as did Mason Shaw, Adam Beckman, Jake Luchinni and Vinni Lettieri, all of whom started last season in Des Moines.

“We’re starting to see, I think, some of the patience pay off when you see some of these younger players getting into the mix,” Guerin said. “So, you want to continue that as well. But look, if there’s an opportunity to improve our team right away, we will do it.”

The most obvious potential for that seems to be a trade involving a goalie.

The Wild were counting on replacing Fleury and his $3.5 million contract with rookie Jesper Wallstedt and the last year of his $925,000 entry deal. Instead, they signed Fleury to a one-year, $2.5 million contract and now have Fleury, Wallstedt and incumbent No. 1 Filip Gustavsson as options.

After signing Fleury for the future hall of famer’s final NHL season, Guerin called the Wild’s goaltending situation “a position of strength.”

Wallstedt, 21, played three NHL games this season, and after a rough start — a 7-0 loss at Western Conference power Dallas — went 2-0 with a 1.01 goals-against average and .962 save percentage in starts at Chicago and San Jose. Gustavsson had a down year (3.06 GAA, .899 save %) but was one of the NHL’s best goaltenders in 2022-23, his first full season.

Fleury has a no-move clause, and Guerin didn’t sign him to trade him, anyway. Leaving Wallstedt in Iowa for most of another season makes little sense, as well, and Gustavsson — who turns 26 in July and has two more years on his deal — is an attractive trade target.

In fact, Gustavsson might be the only veteran trade target on the roster without a no-trade clause in his deal, and he’s due to make more than Fleury and Wallstedt combined ($3.75 million) next season.

There is a risk involved in relying on a 39-year-old veteran and a rookie with three NHL games under his belt, but if Guerin wants to win now, he could really use another veteran top six forward. Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy accounted for 42 percent of all goals this season, and only Hartman and Rossi added as many as 20 goals (21 apiece).

“One of our main objectives is to improve the forward group,” Guerin said.

WRAPPED UP

The Wild have 17 players projected to make the 2024-25 roster under contracts worth $64.13 million next season, well under the projected salary cap of $87.7 million. But they’ll also have $14.7 million in dead cap space to contend with.

Forwards Signed through No trade?
Kirill Kaprizov 2025-26 No
Joel Eriksson Ek 2028-29 No
Matt Boldy 2029-30 No
Mats Zuccarello 2025-26 Yes
Marcus Foligno 2027-28 Yes
Freddy Gaudreau 2027-28 Yes
Marcus Johansson 2024-25 Yes
Ryan Hartman 2026-27 Yes
Marco Rossi 2024-25* No

Defensemen Signed through No trade?
Jared Spurgeon 2026-27 Yes
Jonas Brodin 2027-28 Yes
Jake Middleton 2024-25 No
Jon Merrill 2024-25 No
Zach Bogosian 2025-26 Yes
Brock Faber 2024-25* No

Goaltenders Signed through No trade?
Filip Gustavsson 2025-26 No
Marc-Andre Fleury 2024-25 Yes
*Entry level contract

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