3 Trades that Make Sense for the Minnesota Wild….

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The Minnesota Wild are off on Friday, their only such break during a three game in four day road stretch that will finish on Saturday evening in Ottawa. Unsurprisingly, the NHL’s best road team won both of the first two games, even though they were without superstar Kirill Kaprizov.

Whatever playoff run the Wild can muster this season will be a bonus. They’ve already exceeded preseason expectations, and those expectations were set before a bevy of injuries to their best players threatened to upend what once felt like a magical season in the making.

At the end of the day, we all know what kind of financial restrictions the MN Wild are still dealing with. This is the final season of devastating $15 million cap penalties left by Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. That, combined with the lowest and slowest-moving salary cap of all major sports, has left president Bill Guerin mostly handcuffed.

NHL salary cap going up, up, up…
But on Friday, Billy G. got some really good news in that department. Not only will the Parise + Suter penalties mostly fall off the books next season, 2025-26 will also mark the first of three years where we will see the NHL salary cap jump $25.5 million from $88 million this season to $113.5 million in 2027-28 (as reported by The Athletic).

Season NHL Salary Cap NHL Salary Floor *MN Wild
Cap Space
2024-25 $88.0 million $65.0 million $-275K
2025-26 $95.5 million $70.6 million $21.8M
2026-27 $104 million $76.9 million $49.2M
2027-28 $113.5 million $83.9 million $71.1M

*Projected Cap Space via PuckPedia.com
According to a league memo that was obtained by The Athletic, “the numbers are essentially fixed — although the sides can agree to make minor adjustments up or down if circumstances warrant.”