This is the offseason that Minnesota Wild fans have been waiting for.<\/p>\n
Finally, the team is out from under the weight of the dead cap hits from the 2021 buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. President of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin, who doesn\u2019t like sitting on his hands, hoped to be aggressive in building the Wild into a serious contender.<\/p>\n
The market didn\u2019t do Minnesota any favors, though, with most teams taking advantage of the rising cap to re-sign their own free agents. And there weren\u2019t many sellers when it came to trades. The Wild added Vladimir Tarasenko and Nico Sturm and re-signed Marcus Johansson, but it\u2019s mostly been a quiet summer.<\/p>\n
That includes the contract situations of Kirill Kaprizov and Marco Rossi, the team\u2019s two biggest offseason priorities. Guerin said not to \u201cpanic\u201d if Kaprizov wasn\u2019t signed July 1, the first day he was eligible, and the Rossi stalemate could linger until close to training camp in mid-September.<\/p>\n
How does this all make Wild fans feel? We\u2019ve tackled a ton of topics in the latest version of The Athletic\u2019s annual survey. Are fans more concerned about Kaprizov\u2019s contract than in last year\u2019s survey<\/a>? We\u2019ll break down the results later next week.<\/p>\n