Why hasn’t Kirill Kaprizov signed an extension yet?
Daily Faceoff: Michael Russo, when asked about Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov on if it’s term, and/or money as to why a deal hasn’t been signed yet. Where are things headed?
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jason Gregor: “Now, the Kaprizov one Mike is, on the last rundown, you had said, ‘Hey, I’ve heard that, you know, they’re gonna offer him $128 million, which is 16 over eight years. And they did.
Now, I think term is more the issue, not AAV, or, you know, is that we, because I can see how a guy like Kaprizov or Connor McDavid, any of these other players who look and say, okay, the cap is going up significantly in the next few seasons. And not that you always want to be the highest paid guy, but you want to be close, as Nathan McKinnon said, you don’t want the moniker the best value contract in the NHL. So I can agree with them on that.
But I think term for a few reasons. A, what if the team isn’t winning? And I’m there for eight years, and now I’m into my late 30s, I lose on any chance to maybe find a competitive team. And then B, there’s the AAV.
Where do you come out? Is this more of a term thing, or is this AAV?”
Russo: “I don’t, yeah, I don’t think so. You know. And if you remember also on the Rundown, I completely agree with you. That I, if I were Kaprizov, I think that maybe, maybe a three or four-year extension, which would, you know, again, you’re adding one year to do that, because he has one year left on this deal, is the sweet spot.
So you’re, you know, not only allowing yourself to maximize more money on, you know, as the cap continues to climb, but you’re also putting a little pressure on the Wild to build a real contender around you.
But as of , he has given no indication to the Wild that that is something that he wants. That it is, it is, you know, that he wants a long-term deal. The question is, where?
Is he trying to squeeze every penny out of the Wild? You know, their owner was extremely, for a year, he has been extremely public in the fact that nobody is going to pay him more money, and nobody could give him more term than the Minnesota Wild. He doubled down on that a week and a half, two weeks ago, when they had the unveiling for the newly named Grand Casino arena here, by saying the same thing. That this is going to be a groundbreaking contract.
What was weird about what Craig said, Craig Leopold, is that usually you make those types of comments, Jason, when you know that the deal is essentially done in a drawer. You’re just working on structure or assigning bonuses or whatever. They hadn’t even made the formal presentation yet.
I think there was just a lot of assumptions inside the Minnesota Wild organization that there’s no way that a guy that missed 41 games last year, that is turning 29 when this extension kicks in, would turn down the highest-paid contract in NHL history. Both in terms of AAV and total dollars. That nobody in their right mind would turn down $128 million. Well, they left that meeting and turned it down.
So now it’s where do you go from here? Are they just, because Craig went so public, you know, did Paul Theofanous say, ‘We are turning down everything because we can get him more and more money.’ Or does he, at this point, maybe look like somebody that wants to leave here?
That’s what we have to figure out. He is supposed to talk on Thursday, the first day of training camp. So we’ll see what he has to say. If he fesses up to this, if he, you know, is transparent in any manner, or if he just says, no comment, no comment, no comment.
The only thing I can tell you is, as of this moment, and anything can change with one phone call, and it’s probably going to have to change with Kirill’s side making the phone call is, I don’t think the Wild are just going to automatically up their price. I don’t think they’re suddenly going to go 16 and a half, 16.7, 17, 17 and a half. I think that’s negotiating against yourself.
Right now they have been given, from my sources, no indication, no direction on where Correll wants to take this. So at some point, I think they’re going to have to meet again. But as of right this moment, and again, that could change very quickly. Nothing has changed since he initially turned down that deal early last week.”
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