It seemed that, for the Minnesota Wild to get Kirill Kaprizov to sign a contract extension, they’d likely have to pay him record-setting money.
According to NHL insider Frank Seravelli, that’s exactly what they offered Kaprizov. Their reported offer was for eight years and $128 million.
Both the total value and the annual average value ($16 million per year) would’ve been new NHL records.
But according to Seravelli, Kaprizov turned it down.
And now the question becomes: What now?
Kaprizov is entering the final year of his current deal with Minnesota. Does he want to just make it to free agency? Or does he think they’ll give him even more money than record-setting money?
He won’t hold the record itself for too long. Oilers superstar Connor McDavid is also entering the final year of his deal, and he’s going to get more money than anyone.
But it can’t be a good sign for Minnesota to be rejected by Kaprizov in this way. It invites doubt about what his future is with the Wild.
And they need Kaprizov. He’s their offensive leader.
“I don’t know how the Wild chart their path forward offensively putting the puck in the net if they don’t have Kirill Kaprizov in the fold,” Seravelli said recently on the B/R Open Ice stream. “It’s just about wrapping their head around it.”
Kaprizov is coming off a season when he missed 41 games in the regular season due to injury.
He still scored 25 goals and added 31 assists in just 41 games played.
In the 2023-24 season when Kaprizov was healthy for 75 games, he had 46 goals and 50 assists.
Two seasons prior to that, he had 47 goals and 61 assists, both career bests.
The former fifth-round pick is 28 years old and is going to get gigantic money from somewhere. The fact that he turned down the Wild’s offer, based on Seravelli’s report, means something could be brewing here.
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