Zach Parise and Ryan Suter have agreed to terms with the Wild.
The team landed the two biggest prizes in this year's NHL free-agent class this morning.
Both received 13-year, $98 million deals, according to people familiar with the terms.
"Not a bad day," said Wild forward Matt Cullen. "Unreal, unbelievable. Man, what a great day. Honestly, what a huge day for the organization, for the state."
Parise and Suter will form a star-studded tandem that will be expected to alter the fortunes of a franchise that has missed the playoffs four consecutive seasons.
It's big news in the NHL, a bit like what happened two years ago when LeBron James and Chris Bosh went to Miami, although Parise and Suter didn't need to have an hour-long ESPN special to celebrate their decision.
More important, it makes the Wild relevant again. The Wild had a pretty nice run in the playoffs back in 2003, but we're 10 years on from that and the team has been mostly a study in mediocrity ever since. The team has a beautiful arena in downtown St. Paul and has never charged anything less than top dollar for tickets, but I've had the sense that they have been too self-satisfied to shake things up. Yesterday they sent a message that they done with being complacent. Good for them -- now just hope that there isn't an offseason lockout again.
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The Wild's timing couldn't be better. With the two premiere franchises in the Twin Cities (the Vikes & Twins) in various forms of rebuilding, the market is ripe for the Wild to regain some fan attention.
I saw Craig Leopold speak a few years back (he hasn't own the team for all that long) and was impressed. He certainly presents a far better public image of ownership than Zygi's tongue-tied press conferences or Glen Taylor's Harvey the Rabbit routine for the past decade. I definitely got the sense that Leopold wanted to win and wanted to win now. Yesterday's moves confirm that.
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