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Kirill Kaprizov

Wild Notes: Leipold, Boldy, Middleton, Chisholm

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The owner of the Minnesota Wild, Craig Leipold, took part in a lengthy interview with Joe Smith and Michael Russo of The Athletic carrying a wide array of topics. Despite not making the playoffs last year and not advancing past the second round since 2003 Leipold assures Wild fans the organization is firmly committed to bringing a Stanley Cup to the State of Hockey.

Leipold shared that Minnesota was never interested in a full-scale rebuild and the organization is now in year two of a five-year plan to win a Stanley Cup. The major factors in this rebuild are extending star player Kirill Kaprizov next summer and bringing in some marquee free agents when they have more financial flexibility.

The longtime Wild owner touched on the importance of the inevitable negotiations with Kaprizov saying, “Am I convinced that we can (persuade him to stay)? No. Am I convinced that we will have a better offer than anybody else can do in the league? The answer is yes. I told you that this five-year plan is not a straight line. He’s the most important piece of our five-year plan. I think I can say that“.

Minnesota is still financially reeling from the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter from a few years ago with $14.74MM owed to the players this season. That number will drop to only $1.66MM next summer giving the Wild a ton of room to work with as the cap continues to rise.

Other Wild notes:

  • The injuries that limited forward Matt Boldy and defenseman Jacob Middleton during training camp will not extend into the regular season. Jessi Pierce of the NHL reports that both players are expected to be in the Wild lineup tomorrow for their regular season opener. Boldy was suffering from a lower-body injury and was originally designated as week-to-week on September 23rd before being downgraded to day-to-day on October 1st.
  • One player confirmed to not be in the lineup tomorrow night is defenseman Declan Chisholm who is battling an illness (X Link). There was no guarantee Chisholm would have been in the lineup if healthy as the team may have opted for Jonathon Merrill and Zach Bogosian on the bottom pairing regardless. Minnesota did use Chisholm more than he ever has in his career last season averaging 16:52 of ice time in 29 contests after being claimed on waivers.

Wild Intend To Outbid Teams On Kirill Kaprizov

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Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold spoke this week about the future of star forward Kirill Kaprizov saying that the Wild will offer more money and term than any other team may offer in free agency when the former Calder Trophy winner is eligible for an extension next summer (as per Michael Russo of The Athletic). Kaprizov has registered three straight 40-goal seasons and will certainly hit the jackpot whenever he does put pen to paper on his next deal. Whether that is with Minnesota or not remains to be seen, but according to Leipold, that is certainly the Wild’s intention.

Leipold is aware that Kaprizov’s focus is on winning, and while the Wild have been a perennial playoff contender for the past decade (last year aside), the team hasn’t had much playoff success to speak of. Minnesota hasn’t made it out of the first round of the playoffs since 2014-15 and will have their work cut out for them if they want to prove to their 27-year-old star that they are serious about winning.

The Wild do have an opening though, and it begins next summer when the pain of the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise buyout begins to dwindle. This season the Wild are dealing with $14.7MM in dead money on their salary cap, but next year that dead money drops to just $1.7MM from 2025-29. That reduction opens the door for Minnesota to have more than $20MM in cap space to make moves to improve their team, and given the list of potential free agents next summer the Wild could be positioned to make a splash. Whether or not that will entice Kaprizov to sign long-term remains to be seen, but the Wild appear set to make the best possible push that they can with Leipold acknowledging that the team might have to give out large signing bonuses, something they’ve been hesitant to do in recent years.

The other variable that will work in Minnesota’s favor is that they can offer an eighth year on a long-term contract and will be the only team positioned to do so as other teams will only have the option to offer seven-year contracts in unrestricted free agency.

Snapshots: McCabe, Couture, Shattenkirk, Kaprizov, Sorokin

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The Maple Leafs have begun initial talks with defenseman Jake McCabe on a contract extension, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet on today’s “32 Thoughts” podcast. He’s entering the final season of a four-year, $16MM deal with a $4MM cap hit, but the Leafs are only on the hook for half of it thanks to the Blackhawks retaining $2MM per season on his deal when they traded him to Toronto before the 2023 trade deadline.

McCabe, 31 in October, has fit in seamlessly on the Toronto blue line, averaging 20:39 per game in his first entire season there last year. It wasn’t quite a career-high in ice time, but it was a career-best year for McCabe in nearly every other category, including goals (8), points (28), rating (+20), and hits (219).

While a passable puck-mover, McCabe is primarily effective as a stay-at-home piece. He averaged 2:12 per game on the penalty kill and kept his head above water in terms of controlling expected goals at even strength, the first time he’s done so in his career after toiling on rebuilders in Buffalo and Chicago. He’ll still feature heavily on a new-look Toronto defense next season featuring Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Chris Tanev.

More from around the league:

  • There’s still uncertainty about Sharks captain Logan Couture’s availability to begin the season, but Friedman said that he doesn’t get the sense Couture is considering hanging up his skates. The 35-year-old played just six games in 2023-24 due to osteitis pubis, a rare type of joint inflammation that causes pain and swelling in the groin and lower abdomen (from the Cleveland Clinic). With three seasons left on his contract at an $8MM cap hit, the 15-year veteran still hopes to be a core piece and guide San Jose’s new crop of young players through their ongoing rebuild.
  • Free agent defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk still fully intends on returning for his 15th NHL season in 2024-25, his agent, George Bazos, tells Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic. Bazos said his camp is in discussions with a few teams regarding his client but didn’t say whether they were regarding guaranteed deals or professional tryout agreements. Shattenkirk, 35, had 24 points in 61 games with the Bruins last season in bottom-pairing minutes after signing a one-year, $1.05MM deal in Boston in free agency.
  • Leon Draisaitl’s recent eight-year mega-deal likely has positive implications for Kirill Kaprizov as he kicks off extension negotiations with the Wild, Friedman posits. Kaprizov’s deal runs for two more seasons, and he isn’t eligible to sign an extension until July 1, 2025, but there’s already a sentiment building around the league that Draisaitl’s $14MM cap hit is a “needle-mover” for contracts handed out to superstars, Friedman said. After winning the Calder Trophy during the shortened 2020-21 season, Kaprizov has emerged as one of the league’s most consistent scorers, topping the 40-goal mark for three years in a row. He’s still owed $17.5MM on the five-year, $45MM deal he signed as a restricted free agent in 2021.
  • An undisclosed injury may have had something to do with Ilya Sorokin’s slight regression in play for the Islanders last season, Friedman said. The 29-year-old netminder still managed to finish eighth in Vezina Trophy voting, but his .908 SV%, 3.01 GAA, and two shutouts were all career-lows. He’s about to kick off the eight-year, $66MM extension he signed to stay on Long Island last summer, and Friedman said whether Sorokin checks in at 100% when training camp begins later this month will be one of the bigger storylines to watch for the Isles.

List Of Players Getting Trade Protection On July 1st

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In the current Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL and NHLPA, the league players can procure three types of No-Move Clauses in their contracts. The only stipulations to these clauses are that the player in question must be 27 years of age or older and must have accrued seven years of service time at the NHL level. The three types of No-Move Clauses are as follows: No Movement Clause (NMC), No Trade Clause (NTC), and Modified NMC or NTC.

Per the current CBA, an NMC means that a player cannot be waived, assigned to minors, or traded without their consent, and they also must be protected in the event of an Expansion Draft. An NTC is straightforward — giving the player protection from being traded without their approval. Lastly, a modified NMC or NTC sets an arbitrary number of teams and a time frame when a player can use this protection. In just over a week, an assortment of players will receive trade protection on their current contracts, and CapFriendly has broken it down.

 

No Movement Clauses
D Charlie McAvoy (Boston)
F Sebastian Aho (Carolina)
D Devon Toews (Colorado)
F Roope Hintz (Dallas)
D Gustav Forsling (Florida)
F Kirill Kaprizov (Minnesota)
F Joel Eriksson Ek (Minnesota)
F Jesper Bratt (New Jersey)
F Timo Meier (New Jersey)
G Ilya Sorokin (NY Islanders)
F Pierre-Luc Dubois (Washington)

No Trade Clauses
F Ross Colton (Colorado)
D Nick Seeler (Philadelphia)
D Vince Dunn (Seattle)
F Clayton Keller (Utah)
D Erik Cernak (Tampa Bay)
D Mikhail Sergachev (Tampa Bay)

Modified No Trade Clauses
F Jordan Greenway (Buffalo) – eight-team no-trade list
F Tage Thompson (Buffal0) – five-team no-trade list
D Rasmus Andersson (Calgary) – six-team no-trade list
D Samuel Girard (Colorado) – nine-team no-trade list
F Miles Wood (Colorado) – six-team no-trade list
F Alex DeBrincat (Detroit) – 16-team no-trade list
F Adrian Kempe (Los Angeles) – 10-team no-trade list
F Nico Hischier (New Jersey) – 10-team no-trade list
D John Marino (New Jersey) – eight-team no-trade list
D Jonas Siegenthaler (New Jersey) – 10-team no-trade list
F Mathew Barzal (NY Islanders) – 22-team no-trade list
D Thomas Chabot (Ottawa) – 10-team no-trade list
F Tanner Jeannot (Tampa Bay) – 16-team no-trade list
F Kyle Connor (Winnipeg) – 10-team no-trade list

Wild Activate Kirill Kaprizov Off Injured Reserve

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The Wild have activated leading scorer Kirill Kaprizov off injured reserve prior to tonight’s game against the Coyotes, per a team announcement.

Tonight will be Kaprizov’s first game since sustaining an upper-body injury on a cross-check from Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon on December 30th. He re-enters the lineup after missing seven games and two weeks.

Kaprizov isn’t the only big name returning for Minnesota tonight, either. Netminder Filip Gustavsson was activated off IR earlier in the day projects to start for the first time since December 30 as well.

Despite missing a significant chunk of the past few weeks, Kaprizov still leads the team with 34 points. That’s made up of 13 goals, tied for third behind Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek (who each have 15) and 21 assists, which ranks second behind linemate Mats Zuccarello’s 24.

Without Kaprizov, Gustavsson and even Zuccarello for a stretch of games, the Wild have once again fallen out of the playoff picture in the Western Conference. Including the December 30 game, the Wild are 1-6-1 in their past eight games, dropping to 17-19-5 on the season and seventh in the Central Division. In doing so, they’ve undone nearly all the work done by a hot start under new head coach John Hynes, who replaced former bench boss Dean Evason in mid-November. As such, their playoff chances are down to under six percent, per Hockey Reference.

A small part of the Wild’s struggles has been due to a step back in production from Kaprizov. The fourth-year NHLer produced at a 1.24 point-per-game clip over the past two seasons, but is down to 1.00 points per game this year. He’s also dropped to 0.38 goals per game this season, the lowest per-game rate of his career.

What hasn’t declined is his two-way game. He’s recorded a Corsi share of 54% at even strength, a whopping 4.5% increase from the Wild’s Corsi share without Kaprizov on the ice. As such, he’s still undoubtedly the Wild’s most important skater and makes a huge splash in their chances of turning their season around.

Injury Updates: Smith, Scheifele, Wild

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Pittsburgh Penguins forward Reilly Smith has had a slow start to his first campaign with the team, as his 41-point scoring pace is a notable decline from last season, when he scored 56 points in 78 games. Smith has been struck with even worse luck, as after a hit from Nikita Zadorov in last night’s game Smith is believed to be out “longer-term” with an upper-body injury. (via SportsNet Pittsburgh’s Hailey Hunter)

Smith is currently playing third-line minutes alongside Lars Eller and Valtteri Puustinen, and will need to be replaced for the foreseeable future. Big Radim Zahorna has been a healthy scratch and could step right in, or alternatively, the team could opt to call up a player from its AHL affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. The Penguins traded Wilkes-Barre Scranton’s leading scorer, Rem Pitlick, to the Chicago Blackhawks earlier this month, so it’s likely if there is a recall a player such as Alex Nylander is the one who receives it.

Other injury updates:

  • The Winnipeg Free Press’ Mike McIntyre relayed word this afternoon from Jets head coach Rick Bowness on the injury status of Mark Scheifele. Bowness said Scheifele is day-to-day, and not ruled out for tomorrow’s game. He also called that development “very good news.” He’s certainly correct on that point as the Jets are among the NHL’s best teams this season and Scheifele’s production is all but irreplaceable. He’s got 14 goals and 41 points this season after setting a career-high mark of 42 goals in 2022-23.
  • The Athletic’s Michael Russo reports that injured Minnesota Wild stars Kirill Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin, and Filip Gustavsson are all “getting extra work and contact now.” Russo notes that “how they respond will determine when they can play,” adding that there is a possibility for some to even play in the team’s game tomorrow against the Arizona Coyotes. Getting just one of those players back at the very least would be a massively positive development for a Wild team that looked really strong at the start of new coach John Hynes’ tenure only to fall back as injuries to key contributors built up.

Injury Updates: Wild, Sabres, Lehkonen

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The Minnesota Wild have been dealing with an absolutely massive slate of injuries in their recent stretch of games, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the team. The Athletic’s Michael Russo reported today that the trio of core pillars for the Wild, Kirill Kaprizov, Filip Gustavsson, and Jared Spurgeon are all “progressing and skating,” and thereby in their “next phase” toward full returns to the ice.

Adding Kaprizov, Spurgeon, and Gustavsson back to their roster would give the Wild their number-one winger, number-one defenseman, and number-one goalie back. The team has been strong under new head coach John Hynes, but in order for them to truly have a chance of keeping up in the Central Division that trio of players will need to return to the ice sooner rather than later.

Some other injury updates from across the NHL:

  • As reported by the Buffalo Times Herald’s Bill Hoppe, Buffalo Sabres wingers Victor Olofsson and Jordan Greenway are currently sick and out on a day-to-day timeline for the team. Olofsson was a healthy scratch for the team’s most recent game in favor of Eric Robinson, while Greenway skated on their third line alongside Zach Benson and Casey Mittelstadt. With captain Kyle Okposo now out week-to-week, the possibility both Greenway and Olofsson miss tomorrow’s game against the Seattle Kraken would mean the team could potentially need to recall a forward or two from the AHL’s Rochester Americans.
  • Colorado Hockey Now’s Evan Rawal reports that forward Artturi Lehkonen is skating at Avalanche practice in a white jersey, meaning he has officially moved past the non-contact stage of his injury recovery. The 28-year-old Finnish winger had a breakout campaign last season when he scored at a 27-goal, 65-point 82-game pace and had scored eight points in 12 games this season before suffering his significant injury.

NHL Names Western Conference All-Stars

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Sportsnet is reporting that the NHL has named the first 16 selections from the Western Conference who will appear in the NHL All-Star Game that will take place February 3rd in Toronto.

The game will be held in Canada for the first time since 2012, when it was held in Ottawa. Toronto hasn’t hosted the game since 2000 and this year will be the first time that the NHL uses a four-team, three-on-three format in combination with the fantasy draft format that was used from 2011-2015. The league will name four captains, one for each team, who will take part in a draft to select their teams on February 1st.

The initial players named from the Western Conference are as follows:

Central Division

Arizona: LW Clayton Keller (4th appearance)
Chicago: C Connor Bedard (1st appearance)
Colorado: C Nathan MacKinnon (3rd appearance)
Dallas: G Jake Oettinger (1st appearance)
Minnesota: LW Kirill Kaprizov (3rd appearance)
Nashville: C Filip Forsberg (1st appearance)
St. Louis: C Robert Thomas (1st appearance)
Winnipeg: G Connor Hellebuyck (3rd appearance)

Pacific Division

Anaheim: LW Frank Vatrano (1st appearance)
Calgary: C Elias Lindholm (1st appearance)
Edmonton: C Connor McDavid (7th appearance)
Los Angeles: G Cam Talbot (1st appearance)
San Jose: C Tomas Hertl (1st appearance)
Seattle: RW Oliver Bjorkstrand (1st appearance)
Vancouver: D Quinn Hughes (1st appearance)
Vegas: C Jack Eichel (1st appearance)

The initial announcements of 32 players (one player to represent each team) tonight will be followed by the naming of the final 12 all-stars in the coming weeks. Those 12 players will be decided by a fan vote on NHL.com as well as several of the NHL’s social media platforms.

Minnesota Wild Place Kirill Kaprizov On Injured Reserve

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The Minnesota Wild have placed star winger Kirill Kaprizov on injured reserve. He joins a long list of Wild players on IR, including Filip Gustavsson – who was injured on the same night – Mats Zuccarello, Vinni Lettieri, Sam Hentges, and Jonas Brodin.

Kaprizov went down after receiving multiple cross-checks in the back from Winnipeg Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon. Dillon wasn’t penalized on the play, though Kaprizov is now labelled with a lower-body injury that will hold him out for a minimum of one week. He adds to Minnesota’s long list of injuries, that has also recently featured Marcus Foligno. It’s the beginning of what will inevitably be a difficult stretch for the Wild, now without their top two scorers in Kaprizov and Zuccarello. Kaprizov is the only player to overtake Zuccarello while the latter has sat out for the last eight games. It’s a testament to Zuccarello’s performances this year, netting 28 points in 28 games. Kaprizov has matched the point-per-game scoring, managing 34 points in 34 games.

Minnesota has lost both of their games since Kaprizov and Gustavsson went down with injury, getting outscored six-to-three. Marc-Andre Fleury served as the team’s starter in both games, backed up by Zayne McIntyre. McIntyre joined forward Nic Petan as the two players recalled in the wake of Kaprizov and Gustavsson’s injuries – though it will be interesting to see if Minnesota swaps out depth pieces now knowing that they will be without their pair of dynamic scorers for some time. Top goalie prospect Jesper Wallstedt is currently serving as the starter for Minnesota’s AHL affiliate, where his .922 save percentage across 18 games ranks fourth in the entire league. Wallstedt received an NHL call-up earlier in the season but has yet to make his NHL debut.

Minnesota Wild Place Filip Gustavsson On Injured Reserve

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The Minnesota Wild have announced that netminder Filip Gustavsson has been placed on injured reserve. Gustavsson was knocked out of his last start due to a lower-body injury, and The Athletic’s Michael Russo reports that Gustavsson is set for “another MRI” tomorrow, and is expected to miss “at least a couple weeks.”

Additionally, Russo reports that superstar winger Kirill Kaprizov, who was also knocked out of the same game as Gustavsson, will be out for one to two weeks due to injury.

These two developments are significant blows to the Wild’s hopes of re-entering the Western Conference playoff picture. Although the club is 7-3 in its last 10 games and has been extremely good since hiring John Hynes, they have also lost their last two games. It’s difficult for any club to deal with the loss of its best skater and best netminder, but that’s especially true for a Wild team whose ability to build quality depth has been compromised by significant cap penalties.

The loss of Gustavsson, 25, for a potentially extended period is a massive one. Although his .903 save percentage this season is a far cry from the .931 he posted last year, he has significantly improved as the season has gone on and has seemingly recovered from a very poor start.

With Gustavsson, out, the Wild will have to turn to Marc-André Fleury and Zane McIntyre. Fleury is a legendary goalie but his .893 save percentage this season indicates that he might not be able to keep the Wild in games the same way Gustavsson has. McIntyre, 31, is an experienced third goalie but his .884 save percentage in 12 AHL contests this season suggests he could have trouble playing in the NHL on a regular basis.

It’s unlikely, given the cap constraints they are working under, that the Wild will add meaningful external help at the goalie position. Instead, the team will have to hope that getting more consistent starts, as he did earlier in his career when he was the undisputed number-one goalie for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Vegas Golden Knights, will inspire enough improvement in Fleury’s form to keep Minnesota in the playoff chase.

As for the loss of Kaprizov, the Wild gave veteran Nic Petan a shot in the team’s top-six as a replacement for Kaprizov. While Petan has excelled at the AHL level, he’s 28 years old and his 188-game NHL career suggests he should not be counted on to provide offense on any sort of consistent basis.

The Wild’s installation of Petan in Kaprizov’s place shows how the team’s lack of salary cap space directly impacts the team’s NHL options. CapFriendly projects the club to have just $40K in cap space, meaning Petan is likely on the Wild’s roster by virtue of his extremely affordable $762.5k cap hit, rather than his merits in the NHL.

Another team might have given the first crack at filling Kaprizov’s spot to a younger player such as Sammy Walker, someone who has scored in the AHL but hasn’t quite gotten a major chance to show his skills at the NHL level. But Walker’s cap hit is $855k, meaning the Wild would need to jump through quite a few more hoops to recall Walker compared to Petan.

In any case, the team’s form has been significantly improved under Hynes and those improvements should leave Wild fans confident in their team moving forward. That being said, these two injury announcements pose a significant threat to the Wild’s ability to keep pace with other Western Conference playoff hopefuls.

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