Any hockey fans out there?
- Thread starter Wildabeest
- Start date
SD_Prairie_Goat
Well-known member
Must have been like, you get two more years to get me a cup and then I'm getting paid
Season kicked off yesterday.
Was nice to have games back on in the evening.
Whoever green lit the idea to have the Panthers raise their Stanley Cup banner at 5pm EST should be tarred and feathered and put in the stocks. Should have been the 8pm EST game and been the game of the night.
I created a seperate thread (25-26 NHL Predictions tracker), similar to the one VikingsGuy made for NFL picks (here), but for NHL picks.
I don't have any prizes to offer you, but figured it's a fun way to track your predictions without having to dig through pages of this thread.
Was nice to have games back on in the evening.
Whoever green lit the idea to have the Panthers raise their Stanley Cup banner at 5pm EST should be tarred and feathered and put in the stocks. Should have been the 8pm EST game and been the game of the night.
I created a seperate thread (25-26 NHL Predictions tracker), similar to the one VikingsGuy made for NFL picks (here), but for NHL picks.
I don't have any prizes to offer you, but figured it's a fun way to track your predictions without having to dig through pages of this thread.
SD_Prairie_Goat
Well-known member
First game for the wild tonight! Happy to have a sport to watch again! Can't stand football anymore, too slow pace after getting into hockey 
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Connor signs 8-year, $96 million contract with Jets | NHL.com
Forward 7th in NHL last season with 97 points; deal begins in 2026-27
www.nhl.com
seeth07
Well-known member
it sure is looking like the Wild majorly screwed up with The Thrill. This is all very very painful to see
SD_Prairie_Goat
Well-known member
Here's the flip side tho, if we couldn't sign him but someone else was willing to throw those dollars at him, the team would be a shell of what they are. He's the lynch pin
seeth07
Well-known member
Except they couldn't this year. After seeing all of these 10-13 million dollar deals for these player extensions, probably could have got him for 14-15 mil now
SD_Prairie_Goat
Well-known member
True, but no going back now so might as well look to the future!
SD_Prairie_Goat
Well-known member
Article saying it better than me:
Regrets? Are you kidding me? Bill Guerin slept like a baby the night after he signed Kirill Kaprizov to the NHL’s largest contract ever.
And Connor McDavid, Kyle Connor and Jack Eichel all signing for less doesn’t change the way the Minnesota Wild president of hockey operations and general manager feels about their $17-milion-per-year investment in their Russian superstar.
“Look, everybody’s got a price to where they want to play in their market, and Kirill is worth that to us. He’s that important to us,’’ Guerin told The Athletic shortly after Eichel signed his extension in Vegas on Wednesday. “And we couldn’t take the chance of letting him go. That’s great for those other teams, but it’s still great for us that we have him for nine years. And yeah, Jack is at $13.5 million, and that’s great. But Kirill is that important to us. If we let him go or we even flirt with it, who knows? The worst-case scenario is definitely that he leaves. It’s worse than paying him $17 million.”
Social media was quick to jump on the Wild on Wednesday in the wake of Connor signing for eight years at $12 million and Eichel for eight years at $13.5 million. That, two days after world No. 1 Connor McDavid signed for two years at $12.5 million.
It’s easy to armchair quarterback and say, “Call the Kaprizov’s agent Paul Theofanous’ bluff and threaten to let the player walk in 10 months and replace him in free agency.” Not as easy to do it.
“Yeah, people say that; they’re not sitting in my chair,” Guerin said. “That’s easy to say behind a keyboard or from whatever. I don’t apologize or feel like I have to defend it. We did what we felt we had to do to keep our player.”
The reality is the Wild have several disadvantages when it comes to attracting big-name free agents: They’re not in a tax-free state, they have cold winters and they don’t have a deep tradition of winning.
The other reality is that what looked like a star-laden unrestricted-free-agent crop for July 2026 is already pretty thinned out at the top with all the re-signings. And there’s no guarantee Adrian Kempe, Alex Tuch or Martin Necas get to summer unsigned, either.
So no, the Wild letting Kaprizov walk and trying to replace him in a market wasn’t a realistic path forward.
The Wild had no choice but to overpay. I’m sure they wish Kaprizov had taken more of a team-first attitude like McDavid did. It probably will be awkward at times in that dressing room for Kaprizov to look Matt Boldy in the eye and know he’s making $10 million more per year than him starting next season.
However, as I’ve said before, the ultimate consequence of a salary cap system for players is pitting team needs versus individual financial gain, which in many ways is unfair and certainly unhealthy, but is the world NHL players have lived in since 2005.
In saying all that, one of the ways the Wild can justify paying Kaprizov more than any other superstar in the league is that the rest of their core is locked up to decent contracts: Boldy at a $7 million average annual value through 2030, Joel Eriksson Ek at $5.25 million through 2029, Marco Rossi at $5 million through 2028, Brock Faber at $8.5 million through 2033 and Filip Gustavsson at $6.8 million through 2031.
Was Kaprizov an overpay in the context of what’s happened since with McDavid, Connor and Eichel? Unequivocally, yes. But it’s an overpay that’s justified from the Wild perspective.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
SD_Prairie_Goat
Well-known member
That one made me laugh too. Think that affects a guy from Russia?? He would probably hate Florida haha
seeth07
Well-known member
Sounds to me like a GM that just doesn't want to admit he screwed up.
Look, I get it - you don't want him to leave and he even said he didn't want to leave. He just wanted to focus on winning and the Wild are competitive right now to win (not the best but still a playoff team for sure). There was zero reason to rush into a contract before the season started. The only risk was what happens when one of those players signs for 20mil a year, then what. Instead the exact opposite happened and the best player in the world didn't take a raise and the remaining stars have just followed suit at that "going rate". The Wild jumped the gun and it cost them 2-3mil in cap space next year.
Look, I get it - you don't want him to leave and he even said he didn't want to leave. He just wanted to focus on winning and the Wild are competitive right now to win (not the best but still a playoff team for sure). There was zero reason to rush into a contract before the season started. The only risk was what happens when one of those players signs for 20mil a year, then what. Instead the exact opposite happened and the best player in the world didn't take a raise and the remaining stars have just followed suit at that "going rate". The Wild jumped the gun and it cost them 2-3mil in cap space next year.
Wildabeest
Well-known member
But they like no state income tax in FL.
SD_Prairie_Goat
Well-known member
True point. Can't fault them I suppose. When you make in the millions a 6% tax is a large amount
Wildabeest
Well-known member
That’ll pay for a lot of air conditioning.
Well, if I had to put money on who will be the first coach to be sacrificed this year, I'd be putting a lot of money on John Hynes. The Mild look awful so far this year. They can't score 5 on 5. They aren't physical and they don't win faceoffs which means, once they lose the puck, they can't physically take it from the other team. They look abysmal.
Queue the firing. Hire a recycled coach. Make a furious rally and try and sneak into a wild card spot. Fall short by a hair, or make the playoffs and get your teeth kicked in.
I wouldn't be upset with a guy like Peter DeBoer, but I swear if they go with a perennial re-tread like Peter Laviolette or Torts, I'm done with Bill G.
That's MN hockey, baby.
Queue the firing. Hire a recycled coach. Make a furious rally and try and sneak into a wild card spot. Fall short by a hair, or make the playoffs and get your teeth kicked in.
I wouldn't be upset with a guy like Peter DeBoer, but I swear if they go with a perennial re-tread like Peter Laviolette or Torts, I'm done with Bill G.
That's MN hockey, baby.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Blues are right there with them. Defense for both is terrible. Can't seem to kill a penalty. I assume some of these stats will even out over time given talent level but the hole can't get any deeper in November.
