The Minnesota Wild may be staring at a rare kind of offseason advantage: the league’s rising salary cap is making some of their biggest commitments look smarter by the day.
Around the NHL, contract prices have jumped fast. All three of the top deals in league history by average annual value - Cale Makar, Macklin Celebrini and Leo Carlsson - were signed in July and August.
That kind of spending spree helps players, and it helps the league’s financial mood, but it also changes the way old contracts are viewed. For Minnesota, that shift could matter a lot.
The Wild have not exactly been a model of contract efficiency. According to The Athletic, they rank 17th in the league in getting effective value for their contracts. But if they manage the roster well from here, that ranking could start to look outdated.
The biggest reason is the core. Brock Faber is already looking like a bargain, with seven years left on a deal that pays him $8.5 million per year.
When that contract was signed, it was a bet on what he might become. Now it looks poised to be one of the team’s best values.
Minnesota also locked up Zeev Buium this offseason on an eight-year deal worth $9.38 million. Buium has real upside, but he has only played 76 NHL games and has 26 points. Faber, by contrast, is already ahead of that production curve.
Bowen Byram’s new deal this offseason only sharpens the comparison. Byram signed for $12.5 million per year, while Faber is playing more minutes - 24:41 versus 22:20 in 2025-26 - and has the better career points-per-game mark at .52 compared with .46.
None of that makes Buium or Byram bad players. It just means Minnesota has a more proven defender in Faber at a lower cap hit than the current market says that kind of player should cost.
The same pattern shows up up front. Matt Boldy already has one of the league’s best contracts, and he still has four years left at $7 million annually.
In today’s market, forwards like Drake Batherson and Ryan Leonard are signing for more than $10 million per year. Boldy is more productive than either of those names, and the Wild have him at a far friendlier number.
Kirill Kaprizov’s contract is a little different. When he signed it, it was the richest deal in NHL history and was treated as a necessary overpay.
Minnesota might have been in a better spot if it had locked him in long-term during his first contract negotiation, and that has to count as a missed opportunity. Even so, the deal is no longer the biggest in the league, and the cap landscape around it is changing.
There are still some rough spots on the books. Nico Sturm, Yakov Trenin, Marcus Foligno, Zach Bogosian and Jared Spurgeon all have contracts that The Athletic’s metrics rated as negative surplus value. The good news for Minnesota is that all of those deals are finished next year or the year after.
Michael McCaron’s contract is the one skater deal that still doesn’t look efficient, and the Wild are tied to it long-term. Kaprizov’s deal also shows negative surplus value, but that’s the cost of keeping a franchise player in place.
If Minnesota can clear out the weaker contracts and keep leaning on the value deals already in house, the payoff could be substantial. That kind of cap structure would leave room to spend big when the time comes to keep Quinn Hughes once that deal gets done, and it could put the Wild in position to chase the future star market.
That’s the bigger picture here. For years, contract efficiency has been a problem area.
Now, with the right decisions on the depth side, it could become a strength. The blueprint is already out there too: teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers have leaned on elite players making well below market value, from Brandon Hagel to Gustav Forsling and Carter Verhaeghe, while winning championships.
Minnesota may finally be building toward something similar.
In Other News...
Quinn Hughes Is Making Wild Fans Wait On A Franchise Defining Deal
Quinn Hughes is not sounding like a player rushing toward the finish line, even as the Minnesota Wild keep themselves ready for a potentially franchise-defining deal. He said there is no tension in his contract talks with the team and made it clear he is comfortable taking his time, while also expressing that he is happy with the Wild and not treating the start of the season as a hard deadline.
From the Wilds side, the stakes are obvious. Reports have them prepared to go to the maximum on an eight-year contract with an average annual value north of $20.4 million, a level that would put Hughes atop NHL defensemen in salary history. For a team trying to build around elite talent, the wait is part of the price of doing business, and the uncertainty lingers until Hughes decides how far he wants to go with Minnesota. [Read more 🡒]
Wild Send An Early Message In Search For Kaprizovs New Linemate
On the first day of Wild training camp, Maxim Shabanov was given a clear chance to make an impression by skating on a line with Kirill Kaprizov. For a team reshaping its forward group after offseason changes, that kind of placement is more than just a camp wrinkle. It is an early signal of where Minnesota is looking for offense and how seriously it is taking the search for a new fit alongside its star winger.
General manager Bill Guerin said the team does envision Shabanov in a top-six role, but training camp is still the proving ground as Minnesota evaluates chemistry and different combinations. For Shabanov, the assignment offers a direct path into a meaningful opportunity. For the Wild, it is part of a broader effort to find the right blend up front, with the hope that one of these new looks can stick when the games start to count. [Read more 🡒]
Former Wild Enforcer Officially Closes The Book On His NHL Career
Ryan Reaves has officially closed the book on a long, bruising NHL run, announcing his retirement from professional hockey in a social media post. The former Wild winger spent 16 seasons in the league, built a reputation as one of the sports most recognizable enforcers, and carved out a career that included 962 NHL games, 66 goals and 140 points.
For Minnesota, Reaves was part of the roster for one season, bringing edge, energy and a loud personality to a team that always knew what kind of player it was getting. In his message, he reflected on being grateful for the career he had and for the role he played along the way, a fitting finish for a player whose value was never measured only on the scoresheet. [Read more 🡒]