The Minnesota Wild have been one of the NHL's least successful franchises since their run to the Conference Finals in 2003, when they lost in four games to Anaheim. One reason is that they lacked a star player to build a team around long-term, but they found that star in Kirill Kaprizov when he inked an eight-year, $136 million contract.
Kaprizov is one of the NHL's premier players, and, he's one of four cornerstones who will take the Wild from NHL afterthought to a legitimate and perpetual championship contender. Speaking of cornerstones, the Wild already have three more in Filip Gustavsson, Matt Boldy, and Marco Rossi. All they need is an extension for Gustavsson, and they'll be more than set.
Add in Joel Eriksson Ek, Brock Faber, Zeev Buium, and Jacob Middleton, and Kaprizov is leading a team with both a strong set of cornerstones and a core within it. That's the telltale sign of a legitimate championship contender, and one that's on par with the Central Division's toughest opponents in the Winnipeg Jets, Dallas Stars, and Colorado Avalanche.
Optimism for the Minnesota Wild would be null and void without Kirill Kaprizov
If Kaprizov didn't sign this deal before the season, there would have been a lot of question marks surrounding the Wild. That's the last distraction the team needed. They could have insisted that they are "only worried about this season," but with one of the league's few ultra-premier players heading into 2026 unsigned, a ton of 'what-ifs' would have sprung up.
What if the Wild didn't have Kaprizov locked in and they were, at best, a middle-of-the-road team at the 2026 trade deadline? Or, what if Kaprizov was unsigned for 2026 and the Wild got off to a bad start?
Those question marks would have affected the team's play on the ice, no doubt, regardless of any reassurances coming from general manager Billy Guerin or Kaprizov himself. You can come up with a notebook full of questions that, with Kaprizov in St. Paul long-term, don't need to be answered.
The Wild have the NHL on notice
While some teams saw the Kaprizov news and heaved a sigh of relief, the reality is that Kaprizov, plus a championship-level core in Minnesota will entice players to seriously consider making St. Paul their next destination. For players who can still perform at a high level yet continue to chase a Stanley Cup, don't be surprised if they take pay cuts to play for the Wild.
In short, signing Kaprizov to that $136 million extension completely changed the trajectory for a historically downtrodden franchise. When you add in their existing core, some of whom are legitimate cornerstones, you're seeing a team that previously had a lot of question marks that has transformed into one of the league's most relevant.