No. We cannot discuss it

I’ll save it for a rainy day then.

It's like another version of the Merrill contract - it's obviously not crippling or anything, but it's really unnecessary and just....why?

I'm with you on it.

A bit. I don’t hate either contract in isolation but the term on both is just bleh. Merrill is fully buriable tho and I think they viewed him as a 7, I can justify that more than blocking a Rossi for *perceived* solid play.

Freddy G doesn't block Rossi from anything. Rossi is top-6 or bust, Freddy G doesn't belong anywhere near the top-6. If there is one contract that blocks Rossi it's MarJo playing wing with Boldy/JEE. That is the spot Rossi fits on the roster.

I don't like the Freddy G contract because it's 2 years too long.

The term isn't *ideal* but $2.1M for a middle 6 guy who is good for 15-20 goals and 40 points every year feels like a fine value. He's capable of playing the wing, too, so if Rossi forces the issue you just move him off the dot.

Yeah the parallel is committing term to replacement positions. Merrill is less term and easier to bury, but it's the same concept at the core.

Both guys could be backfilled easily in any given offseason, so it's just wholly unnecessary.

I’d kind of prefer Rossi playing 3rd line this year if you gave him an offensive minded W.

I see your point and agree Rossi is a top 6 guy, but try telling Dean Freddy isn’t a top 9 C or to take Hartman off of the 1st line (which is the only solution I see here). I also don’t want Rossi on the W.

He scored 44 pts between Boldy and Fiala, less than 40 with just Boldy. Saying Freddy is good for 15-20 goals and 40 pts is only valid when he’s playing with all stars, which he shouldn’t.

He has scored 15+ goals once and over 40 points once.

He has scored more than 10 points twice and had more than 3 goals twice

He's 30

Rossi has to prove he's NHL centre. Gee, Freddy has proved his worth at 2.1m an it should be good value for years.

I mean, what more are you expecting out of a guy making $2M? I agree that you'd rather have a better player there (and the hope is that Marco Rossi becomes that player), but at the same time having those inexpensive middle-6 guys who can actually hang with your top forwards is a huge asset.

Look at the centers who signed for similar AAVs this summer - Lars Eller (2x$2M), Nick Bjugstad (2x$2.1M), Noel Acciari (3x$2M), Tyson Jost (1x$2M), and David Kampf (4x$2.4M). I get that the term is less than ideal, but I think that the Wild got a pretty decent bang for their buck by adding on the extra couple years.

Wild have no cap space this year. Signing a guy at $1.5 mil creates the space they need to maneuver that they don’t have with Freddy at $2.1 mil. And the problem with the extra years is that I don’t want a guy when he’s 33-35. I have a hard time seeing an ending to this deal that doesn’t end in waivers/cap dump/buyout.

Don’t give role players money OR TERM. And Freddy is a role player.

He's also played more than 55 games only twice - the past two seasons with the Wild. He literally had 103 games in parts of 4 seasons under his belt before getting a shot with the Wild - I don't think using counting stat benchmarks for him works. It's also several years ago, on a different team, with a different coach, and with different usage (9ish minutes TOI with Nashville vs. 16+ with the Wild.) It's apples and something even more different than apples than oranges.

His most recent production is 158 GP over two seasons with the Wild, where he went 33-48-82. Over an 82 game pace, that averages out to a 17-25-42 line. I don't think calling him a 15-20 G/40pt guy is any sort of stretch when that's the production he's put up for the majority of his career to date.

The age is what it is. He's 30, he's gonna get $2.1M through his age-34 season. It's 3rd line money - hell, if the cap goes to $90M+ it's going to be 4th line money. Acting like he's a problem for a Wild team paying their 38 year old 7th D $2M (with a full NMC) or paying Marcus Johansson $2M for his age-33/34 seasons (with, you guessed it, a full NTC) just seems like picking nits.

MN doesn't have any more offensive minded wings outside the top-6. Freddy G is ideally a 4C, Dean knows that, there is just no better option anywhere in the org to bump Freddy out of the top-9. It really just comes down to Rossi has to be better than Hartman and Freddy G to take their spot.

Last year Rossi was completely lost on the ice in the NHL, with everything about his game was too slow for the NHL. Shaw (rightfully) took the roster spot away from him.

Rossi has the skillset of a playmaking wing at the NHL level. He doesn't have the size or speed (you need at least one) to be a NHL center.

I think we’re just gonna have to disagree on our assessments of Rossi. I also think the conversation about him would be night and day if Dean gave him as much of a leash as he gives Freddy.

I’m expecting Rossi to put the “not ready” arguments to bed this year. And if he doesn’t, I’ll be in your camp.

Honestly, I think the contract I'd be more annoyed about is the $2M he gave Marcus Johansson *after* they signed Gaudreau's extension. Marcus is 3 years older than FG, so you're paying him for the same years you're worried about with Freddie. He's a winger only at this point in his career instead of a guy who can play center like Gaudreau; and, just for fun, he's got a full NTC instead of the 15-teamer that Gaudreau has. And I think that if you're talking about Marcus Johansson you have to bring up the injury history - it's not the guy's fault, but it definitely gives you pause.

That deal felt like a huge overreaction a small sample size. Johansson skated most of his time with Matt Boldy and somehow outscored his opponents 17-9 at 5v5 despite negative possession numbers. I think it's much more likely that he's the 40-45 point guy he was with the Caps before the trade than a guy who's magically scoring at a 0.9 PPG pace.

Johansson's contract expires the same year their buyouts dropoff. Gaudreau's does not. That's the difference.

Whatever happens with his production or health over the next two years does not materially matter, because there is zero overlap with their desired "contention" window. Yes, the Wild are trying to remain competitive in the interim, but they are not legitimately invested in being a cup contender until the start of the 25-26 season.

The term is the point OP is making.

The cap is projected to hit $90M by the 2025 offseason - I would humbly present The History of NHL Free Agency, Pre-COVID as my prediction of how NHL teams are going to pay middle/bottom-6 forwards when they all of a sudden have an extra $8-10M to throw around. You think the Leafs giving Ryan Reaves 3x$1.35M is wasteful? Hoo boy, that's just the tip of the iceberg!

I guess I just don't see Gaudreau as being a symptom of the Wild's issues. I think he's a better player than most of the other UFA centers who signed in the $2-2.5M range this summer, and I think he's versatile enough to be a perfectly cromulent player on the wing if you want Marco Rossi to only play C. I also think the likelihood that he's a complete and total bum by the time the Suter/Parise penalties fall off in 2025 is pretty low; the fact that he was a late bloomer means he'll have significantly less NHL miles on him by then compared to your typical 32-year-old. I think giving the extra term to make sure you get a guy that's proven he's a fine middle-6er on your team is worth it; it's also worth noting that the contract is more front-loaded salary wise meaning that he'll either be cheaper to buy out or easier to pawn off on a cap floor team at the end of his deal if he truly does fall apart.

I don't see Dean giving Freddy any sort of long leash. Simply put Freddy G was better than the Jost, Dewar, Shaw, Reaves, ect. that MN ran in it's bottom-6 last year. Rossi wasn't in his 15-20 games. Hartman, JEE, Steel, and Rossi were the centers to start the year last year. Freddy G started the season as the 3RW.

I'm not a Freddy G fan by any means. It annoys me that he's playing so high in the lineup, but that is on the GM for the roster decisions he's made.

You're over-analyzing it. Neither contract is overly risky and everyone agrees on that. But you made the suggestion that Wild fans should be more concerned over MoJos contract than they should Freddy's. And that just fundamentally doesn't make any sense in the context of the Wild's specific cap situation and franchise timeline/goals.

The next 2 years don't really matter. The years afterwards do.

You're arguing it from the theoretical perspective of "insert any given NHL team here" vs. "the Wild specifically."

If he could skate maybe…