Kirill Kaprizov has reportedly rejected a contract offer from the Minnesota Wild that would have made him the NHL’s highest-paid player. (Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)
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After Connor McDavid’s lack of a contract extension with the Edmonton Oilers has made headlines over the past few weeks, Kirill Kaprizov of the Minnesota Wild is now taking his turn in the spotlight.
Like McDavid, Kaprizov is a 28-year-old star, in the prime of his career, who can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2026. But despite claims from Wild owner Craig Leipold last week that the two sides were “not that far off” on a contract extension that he called “a huge deal — likely the biggest in the NHL ever,” league insider Frank Seravalli reported on Wednesday that Kaprizov’s camp rejected the eight-year, $128-million offer that would have made him the highest-paid player in NHL history as measured by both total contract size and annual cap hit ($16 million).
The league’s most prolific goal-scorer, Alex Ovechkin, currently holds the record for the largest total-dollar contract in NHL history with the 13-year, $124-million extension he signed back on Jan. 10, 2008. The highest-ever cap hit is Leon Draisaitl’s new $110-million deal, with an average annual value of $14 million per season, which takes effect this fall.
But perhaps the more pertinent comparable is still McDavid’s expiring deal. It carries a $12.5 million cap hit but was worth a record-setting 15.7 percent of the total cap ceiling of $79.5 million when it went into effect in the 2018-19 season. That’s the highest of any deal that has been signed since the salary cap went into effect in the fall of 2005.
The NHL’s collective bargaining agreement caps the maximum cap hit for a single player at 20 percent of the team’s total in any given year. But the unprecedented rise in the cap that has been mandated over the next three years means that number is going to skyrocket.
Draisaitl’s $14 million represents 14.7 percent of the league’s $95.5 million ceiling for the 2025-26 season, where the maximum would be $19.1 million. In 2026-27, the ceiling will rise to $104 million, so the maximum will be $20.8 million.
The Wild’s reported offer of $16 million would be well short of that, at 15.4 percent of the cap. Buit it would still be the second-highest percentage in league history — behind only the McDavid deal.
Perhaps Kaprizov and his agent, Paul Theofanous, are looking to seize top spot as calculated by percentage — especially with the cap set to jump all the way to $113.5 million in 2027-28, which should drive even more salary inflation.
The Kaprizov camp drove a hard bargain when the then-24-year-old waited until Sept. 21, 2021 to sign a five-year deal with a cap hit of $9 million after playing just 55 games in his first NHL campaign — the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season.
After being selected by the Wild in the fifth round of the 2015 draft, Kaprizov arrived in North America as a seasoned professional with six seasons in Russia’s KHL and a gold medal from the 2018 Winter Olympics.
In a difficult year that featured only intradivisional play, limited fan access and plenty of social distancing, Kaprizov earned his payday by leading all rookies with 27 goals and 51 points on his way to a decisive Calder Trophy win. By establishing himself as the kind of sublime offensive talent that has been in short supply on the Wild’s roster since the team’s debut in 2000, he also effectively wrote his own ticket despite the Wild’s financial challenges of the flat-cap era and GM Bill Guerin’s decision to buy out the contracts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter in the summer of 2021.
Now, the worst of that pain is over. The buyout charges for Parise and Suter have dropped to a manageable $1.67 million per season for the next four years, so Guerin is now able to spend more liberally.
Kaprizov is at the top of Guerin’s priority list. But while both Wild beat writer Michael Russo at The Athletic and Sportsnet insider Elliotte Friedman on the ‘32 Thoughts’ podcast have indicated that Theofanous may have a sense that Kaprizov could command more than $16 million from another suitor in free agency, how much of a risk are they taking by not committing now?
When he’s on his game, Kaprizov is a magician. In 2021-22, he set the Wild’s franchise records in goals (47) and points (108), and followed up with two more 40-goal seasons. But he missed games due to injury in both 2022-23 and 2023-24 before being limited to just 41 games last season due to a lower-body injury that required surgery. To his credit, he was back in time for the playoffs and looked terrific in the post-season, leading the Wild with nine points in their six-game first-round loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.
But those injury absences have left Kaprizov’s performance shy of other top players during his time in the league. Over his five seasons to date, he’s tied with Sam Reinhart of the Florid Panthers for eighth in goals (185) and sits 15th in points (386). He is also 10th in points per game (1.21), and has not yet been out of the first round of the playoffs.
That being said, the Wild’s roster challenges due to their cap constraints have limited Guerin’s ability to surround Kaprizov with other top talents — there’s nothing like a McDavid-and-Draisaitl tandem in the State of Hockey.
Young forwards Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi and defenseman Brock Faber are developing nicely and offer hope for the future, but the team’s second-highest scorer during the Kaprizov era is now-38-year-old Mats Zuccarello with 298 points in 328 games. He continued to play big minutes last year, but is in the final season of his current contract.
Maybe it is just about the money. The praise that Leipold and Guerin have heaped upon Kaprizov certainly leaves the possibility open that an even bigger payday is available and according to Russo, “Kaprizov has told us he loves the area.”
But Russo adds, “He has also told us that winning is the most important thing to him, though, and it’s fair to wonder if the Wild have shown him he can do that here. Players only get one career.”
As all sides around the league find their footing in the NHL’s new financial landscape, players are taking their time as they ponder their options. The Kirill Kaprizov situation will be one to continue to monitor.