The ink on Brock Faber’s contract is dry, as are the dozens of articles and blog posts that all seem to agree with it.
The Minnesota Wild did it.
Faber’s contract guarantees the hometown boy eight more years of playing in St. Paul, and it’s almost certainly a positive value contract. It also leaves room for spectacular upside. But the contract is also fair to Faber, as it guarantees him life-changing money. What a happy ending.
That’s all just a first-level analysis, though. To get to the second level, we’ll examine how the deal impacts the Wild’s team-building strategy. From that perspective, the Faber contract may be the most interesting move of Bill Guerin’s tenure.
So Faber’s market value is his value on the ice minus the value of those picks. Minnesota only has to pay him his market value because they can beat any offer from another team.
Faber remains an RFA until he turns 27 on July 1, which won’t happen until July 2030. Minnesota can keep Faber for a price well below his on-ice value for the 2025-26, 2026-27, 2027-28, 2028-29 and 2029-30 seasons. Based on the contract model developed by Dom Luszczyszyn at The Athletic, Faber gave up about $1.7 million per year over eight years, for a total projected value of about $13.6 million.
Since Faber’s underpayment is a foregone conclusion, the question becomes: In which years does Guerin want to save that $13 million? If the Wild were to extend Faber’s contract for just those five RFA seasons (2025-26 through 2029-2030), they could concentrate those savings to an average of about $2.7 million.
The total savings in those years would be much higher still. In such cases, UFA years are more expensive than RFA years because Minnesota has less leverage. For every UFA year they add to the contract, Faber’s agents increase the average value of the contract, driving up the cap hit.
If we take Faber’s projected value over those five RFA seasons ($9.5 million per year) and subtract Minnesota’s $13.6 million in outside capital, the Wild could push the salary cap of this deal under $7 million for those five years. Then Faber would command a huge UFA deal starting in his 28th season.
Ultimately, signing Faber to an eight-year deal that buys out some of his UFA years will cost Minnesota about $1.5 million to $2 million per year for his first five years of existence. Maybe that money isn’t enough to sign a new player, but it would be enough to give a mid-roster free agent a significant raise.
In free agent terms, that $1.5 million to $2 million is the difference between a third- and second-line forward, or a third- and second-line defenseman. With Kaprizov up for a contract extension in 2026-27, a worse supporting cast could hamper Minnesota’s ability to bring in the necessary help to keep their Russian sharpshooter under contract during his prime.
Graphic source: Dom Luszczyszyn at The athlete
That doesn’t mean that Faber’s contract extension will mark the end of Kaprizov’s time in Minnesota. Rather, it means Guerin has a plan to offset that influence through the pool of young players.
The Wild’s roster will trade several players by the time the 2026 offseason arrives. Mats Zuccarello will be a free agent at 39. Zach Bogosian will be a 36-year-old free agent, and Jon Merrill will be a fond and distant memory. Marcus Johansson will likely leave in 2025. If all four players leave, $8.5 million in salary cap space will be freed up.
Danila Yurov, Riley Heidt and Liam Ohgren are ready to replace that group. At the back, one or two defensemen, Jack Peart, Carson Lambos, Daemon Hunt and David Spacek can fit in the bottom four, and Zeev Buium will likely push for a position in the top four.
If you’re counting, that’s two forwards and two defensemen costing about $8.5 million being replaced by three forwards and two or three defensemen, all at a cost-controlled price. Jesper Wallsted, Marco Rossi and Marat Khusnutdinov will get raises by then but will still be on low-cost RFA contracts. UFA extensions for Filip Gustavsson and Declan Chisholm will get a raise in unrestricted free agency. They can replace Chisholm with one of Iowa’s defensemen, though.
Then you have to factor in a projected 3% raise over the next two years, which creates an additional $5.4 million in cap space. With the space freed up by the departures of Bogosian, Merrill, Zuccarello and Johansson, that’s $13.9 million to pay four rookies and give raises to Rossi, Khusnutdinov, Gustavsson, Wallstedt and perhaps Chisholm. The rest goes to Kaprizov’s raise.
The only obstacle would be if Minnesota had too many young players ready to move to the NHL and too many players on the roster. However, Guerin has a solution for that too. Each of the following players has limited No-trade clauses (NTC), meaning the Wild can trade them to any team other than their 10- or 15-team no-trade list: Marcus Foligno (15-team NTC), Ryan Harman (10-team), Frederick Gaudreau (15), Jared Spurgeon (10), Jacob Middleton (15), or Jonas Brodin (no-trade protection).
Depending on the age of these players and the roles the rookies can fill, Guerin can trade these players to 17 to 22 other NHL teams that are not on the player’s no-trade list.
These trades might not benefit Minnesota alone, though. They might have to maintain their salary or accept less than optimal trade compensation. But if it’s just about freeing up salary cap space to sign a top-tier free agent in 2026 to play alongside Kirill Kaprizov, this squad could be a favorite for the Stanley Cup. No one cares if the Wild have to dump a few second-day draft picks to free up salary cap space just to have a few long playoff runs.
Or, if the Wild talent doesn’t develop into roles in the top half of the lineup, Guerin has the flexibility to keep those players rather than trade them and still field a roster that can push into the playoffs. If Guerin (or, if Minnesota’s Cup window bursts, his successor) needs to hit the reset button, Faber’s contract extension will be incredibly cheap over the final three seasons. If Kaprizov leaves in 2026, Faber could be the foundation of a championship squad in 2030-31, ’31-32 and ’32-33.
This gives the roster a reasonable floor and a fairly high ceiling. If the team has to break contracts with veteran players to make room, it becomes more expensive to go all in when the young players are ready to compete for the Stanley Cup. The advantage is that if the guys don’t meet the high expectations, the team isn’t forced to do a tough rebuild around a bottom-five roster.
Overall, it seems like Guerin has opted for a safer strategy, with a good chance of ending up with a roster that can compete for the Cup. To do that, Guerin has chosen his best young players early and signed key veterans as a hedge against a future where Minnesota’s prospects don’t pan out well. While that has pushed the window back another year to 2026-27, it leaves room to salvage the roster even if a whole lot goes wrong.
And if everything does goes wrong, Brock Faber will be there to hold things together.
