Wild re-signs Christian Folin to a two-year deal

The Wild has re-signed restricted free-agent defenseman Christian Folin to a two-year, $1.45 million contract. That's annual salary-cap hit of $725,000.

Most interesting is it's a full one-way contract. That currently gives the Wild eight defensemen if Mike Reilly makes the team (Ryan Suter, Jonas Brodin, Marco Scandella, Jared Spurgeon, Reilly, Matt Dumba, Nate Prosser and Folin).

I use the word "interesting" because if the Wild keeps eight defensemen and Niklas Backstrom remains on the roster once the season starts as a third goaltender, the Wild could only keep 12 forwards (no extras).

This of course is barring trades before the season, other roster moves or injuries.

Folin, 23, a 6-foot-3, right-shot blue liner who hails from Sweden, was a big college free-agent get for the Wild out of the University of Massachusetts-Lowell in April 2014. He played one game that season, recording an assist and being plus-3. Last season, Folin scored two goals and eight assists and was plus-3 in 40 games.

This leaves one restricted free agent NHLer still unsigned. That's Erik Haula, who filed for arbitration. His hearing has been set for the end of this month. The Wild is not yet close to re-signing Haula and this could very well go down to the arbitration wire to either settle on a new contract or go on with arbitration.

As I mentioned when he filed, the good part of arbitration is there will be a resolution and Haula will either be re-signed by the end of this month or when the arbitrator awards him a one- or two-year contract (Wild's choice) within 48 hours after the hearing (if there is one).

So, this won't drag on like Nino Niederreiter and Darcy Kuemper last offseason. Jon Blum also remains unsigned. As I've mentioned, Blum is on the trading block, too.