Nearly a year ago, Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold declared that no team would be able to offer Kirill Kaprizov more money and was confident GM Bill Guerin would be able to retain the Russian’s services before his $9-million AAV contract expired in 2026. And in theory Leipold was right — since the Wild could offer one more year than any other team on a contract, and Minnesota did have the leverage to offer more total dollars than competitors in an open, free-agent market.

The question was: would he want to stay? The Wild have big plans for this core and have signed a few members of it to multi-year deals already. But Kaprizov was at the centre of it, the prized superstar who was a frontrunner for the Hart Trophy last year before a mid-season injury limited him to 41 games. Without Kapr

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