Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as "The Hockey Maven," shares his humor and insight with readers each Wednesday. This week compares soaring new contract numbers like Kirill Kaprizov 's Minnesota Wild deal with a similar king-sized event that shook the hockey world almost a century ago.

NHL hockey salaries increasingly have become bigger stories than ever, yet the phenomenon is almost a century old.

Kirill Kaprizov's eight-year, $136 million contract (average annual value of $17 million) he signed with the Minnesota Wild on Sept. 30 has captured the imagination of the hockey world for both its size in dollars and term. The deal, writes NHL.com senior writer Amalie Benjamin, shows the financial stability in the NHL .

The K

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