The buyout calculator will give you the clear picture. A buyout pays Parise through the 2029-30 season. Three of the next 6 years his cap hit would be 6.7, 7.7, and 7.7 million.

There’s zero possibility he will be bought out. It’s a horrible contract that Minnesota is stuck with.

There's no reason to trade or buy him out. If he doesn't turn it around somehow, he can whine to the media each summer about not being able to compete for a Cup and help the Wild reach the cap floor while they rebuild. His contract will eventually count for $7.5m while only paying $1.5m in real cash. That's a rebuilding team's ideal contract in my book. If he retires and they get nailed with the massive cap penalty? Even better to force Leipold to let the team bottom out finally.

I doubt Suter will retire, since he's Leipold's buddy. He may eventually end up on LTIR due to his ankle, but again, rebuilding team friendly contract.

Everyone knows how this is going to end. Parise is going to fake an injury or over exaggerate the extent of one and the team is going to tell him to go away and he retires to Robidas island.

With his history of back problems, he won't need to fake anything.

Every player gets injuries when they get older. The LTIR loophole allows the team to dictate what is career ending or not because of salary reasons.

We all know that the good teams use this to cheat. And no one does anything about it.

Can't argue with that. It surprised me that Luongo actually retired instead of going on LTIR, he could have and no one would have done anything about it.

Maybe Bettman will start punishing this retroactively like he is with the cap recapture penalty...

There's no way that they can buyout without cap recapture. If there were, they'd just buyout the last two or three years of the contract.

My point is that the Wild might have to decide if the cap recapture penalty is worth it or not for Parise to no longer hold a roster spot. That time isn’t now...but it’s coming

We don't have the prospects to worry about the 23rd spot. I'd rather leave him in the press box at the end of his career than buy him out if he can't play. The recapture is too much of a penalty. If he retires, I have the recapture, but not the buyout on top of that.