When you're a team with 12 players ages 25 and under, every year there will be significantly good players that will need to be re-signed and big decisions that must be made.
Last year, it was with Mikael Granlund, Charlie Coyle, Jonas Brodin and Marco Scandella. All were re-signed: Granlund to a two-year, $6 million bridge deal and Coyle (five years, $16 million), Brodin (six years, $25 million) and Scandella (five years, $20 million) to long-term deals.
This year will be no different. Four significant players have contracts that expire at season's end: defensemen Jared Spurgeon and Matt Dumba, left wing Jason Zucker and goalie Darcy Kuemper. Spurgeon, Dumba and Zucker, especially, could warrant lucrative new contracts.
Will the Wild — and can the Wild — re-sign all three and remain comfortably under the salary cap while also preserving flexibility to make other roster changes and fit in other quality youngsters in the future?
"It's going to be hard," General Manager Chuck Fletcher said. "Depending on how much or how little the cap goes up, it's going to make it more challenging. The tighter the cap is, the tighter our cap space is."
Heading into the 2016-17 season, the Wild currently has around $58 million committed to 14 players. Twenty-three make up a roster. The moment Devan Dubnyk was re-signed to a six-year deal, Kuemper's fate was likely sealed. The young goalie will almost surely be traded at some point with the timing of next June's draft making sense.
But if the Wild chooses to re-sign Spurgeon, Dumba and Zucker, much of the Wild's remaining cap space will be eaten up.
"We project what they'll cost. The math works, but that's in a boardroom," Fletcher said, laughing. "So, we'll see. Obviously the players will have to want to stay. I think everybody knows our situation, whether it's the players or the agents. If they want it to work, then it's a good chance it'll work."
