Marat Khusnutdinov's first practice Wild defenseman Jake Middleton's contract is set to expire after the 2024-25 season. The question becomes, what should the Wild do with Middleton? There are a few options. Middleton will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2024-25 season which is the final season of the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise buyouts at $15 million. The Wild will still owe Parise and Suter money until 2029 but it is only $833,333 each. Middleton, 28, has one year left on his three-year $2,450,000 deal. Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, and soon to be Brock Faber, all have some type of no trade clause. Middleton does not. So if the Wild are in the same spot they were this year at the trade deadline next season, maybe management will elect to move Middleton for some assets. I can't imagine Middleton's next contract will be worth more than $5 million a year but he will likely get a pay increase from his previous deal. Right now, Evolving Hockey has Middleton projected [https://evolving-hockey.com/stats/contract_projections/?_inputs_&con_season=%2220232024%22&con_team=%22All%22&con_pos=%22All%22&con_status=%22All%22&con_agent=%22No%22&con_period=%221%3A%20July%201st%20-%20July%2031st%22&con_signs_with=%22UFA%3A%20Different%2C%20RFA%3A%20Same%22&con_8yr=%22On%22&dir_con=%22Contract%20Projection%20Tables%22&con_player=%22Jacob%20Middleton%22&con_cap=%2287700000%22] to get a 4-5 year deal at $4,490,000 AAV. Brodin is locked up for the next four seasons, Spurgeon the next three, Zach Bogosian the next two, Faber soon to be the next eight or nine years, and Declan Chisholm likely for the next two or more. If the Wild commit to Middleton for the next four or five seasons this leaves prospects like Daemon Hunt, Carson Lambos, Ryan O'Rourke, and Jack Peart wondering where they fit into the equation. Chisholm, 24, seems like someone the Wild likes having and a defenseman that they will keep around for the next season for sure and likely more. Brodin, Faber, and Spurgeon are not going anywhere. Unless, they waive their no trade clauses and a team wants them. Faber doesn't have a no trade clause or contract extension (yet), but he isn't going anywhere. If you add Middleton to the mix, that would leave the Wild with essentially one spot to be filled on the blue line. Which is currently being filled by Bogosian for the next two years. Unless the Wild trade, buyout, or bury Jon Merrill's one-year, $1.2 million contact in the AHL, the seventh defensemen role is filled as well. On paper, the Wild will have the same six defensemen next season and the season after, assuming both Middleton and Chisholm are extended longer than one year. This leaves Hunt, 22, O'Rourke, 22, Lambos, 21, and Peart, 21, to stay in the AHL for longer. Now injuries happen, so one of those four if not two of them will play in NHL games next year and that is almost a guarantee. But the Wild are in win now mode. They don't want to just sit around for the buyout cap hits to expire before they can compete. They want to compete now. Whether you agree with it or not, that is the Wild's plan. Which means I would expect to see a Middleton extension sometime next season. “Because I don’t operate like that, just wait it out," Bill Guerin, the Wild's President of Hockey Operations and General Manager, said at the end of the season. "I don’t. He [John Hynes, Head Coach] doesn’t operate like that, I know that. We’re not just gonna wait.” Signing Middleton long-term and still having Bogosian, Brodin, and Spurgeon under contract for the next two seasons doesn't mean this is the set and stone four that will play every game in those two years. Should the Wild extend Jake Middleton? [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjA3MTAyNjUwMzEzODc3MjI0/usatsi_22331068.jpg] Should the Wild extend Jake Middleton? The organization wants internal competition. They want some young guys to push the older guys out of the lineup or out of a top role. Competition is good, the younger defensemen just need to prove they are capable of doing that. “We want to win now. What we want from our younger players is to push the make our lineup, to push the older players, get some internal competition," Guerin said. "If one of our younger players can push out one of our older players and take his spot in the lineup because he’s better, then do it. If you can jump up on our second line, and put our second line guy down on the third or fourth, then do it. That’s what we want. We want the internal competition. “That’s what drives great teams and great players. You can’t wait around and wait for a spot to open up and us to put you in there. No. Take it. And you know what? I hope the older players get scared that somebody’s going to take their job, and that scares them into playing better — because it happens." So even though on paper it doesn't seem like there is an opportunity for Hunt, who has played in 12 career games, or either Lambos, Peart, or O'Rourke to get in the Wild's lineup and push someone out of it, that isn't the case. “What Billy just said, I think, is a reality in the salary cap era," Hynes said. "I think on all teams you have to have young players to be able to come up through your system, and then you need them to make impacts on your NHL lineup. “But you need younger guys to come in and make impacts. We have several good players right now that we’re excited about, they’ve been with the team a little bit. There’s more guys coming. But as Billy said, internal competition is a reality, and lots of times, even if you have veteran players, when you have younger guys on your team there’s a different energy, too. They’re hungry, they’re eager to learn, they push certain areas of the game, they push certain players." What do you think? Should Middleton be extended or should the Wild wait and see until the Trade Deadline to make a decision? Tell us what you think. [https://thehockeynews.rtb.io/minnesota-wild/posts/Lu1JDNdPtcROMbW3odGY] Make sure you bookmark The Hockey News' Minnesota Wild page [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/minnesota-wild/] for the latest news, exclusive interviews, breakdowns and so much more. WILD NEWS
