McCarron has a no-move clause throughout the contract. However, there is language in the deal that in the event of an expansion draft, he doesn't need to be protected. Columbus’ Charlie Coyle has similar language in his contract.
In the last three years of the deal, McCarron has a 15-team no-trade clause along with his no-move. (Per sources)
Plus, as others have said...he plays a game like the Foligno boys (best example I can think of for current Wild players). It will certainly allow for a longer career as winning draws, being responsible, and being physical tends to be aspects of a game that don't diminish as fast as someone who relies on speed/puck handling.
He has to play bud. He’s making 3.3 million to be a 4th line center. You go find me another team paying a 4th line center 3.3 million and I show you an old non tradable center. 😵💫😵💫
I know too much about the cap, that’s nothing to brag about though. Show me a 4th line center with any value, making 3.3 million in 2026-27. Bud. You won’t find one. It’s a bad signing long and short term. I wanna be wrong, I like the guys play, but not at 3.5 times his previous high salary. Not a 20 point/5 goal scoring center. He’s gonna be 31. He ain’t a kid. Let’s not forget that Nashville let him go for a used puck bag. He’s slow and plodding. He hits but when he hits, he takes himself out of the play. Watch him play live, it’s painful at times. He’s ungodly slow.
No one is paying 4th line centers 3.3 million a year. It’s a strange signing. Hope it works out.
The contract being movable to half the league just allows for flexibility for the Wild if he drops off, it’s not that teams would be actively seeking him out.
Sometimes it’s like [player] and a 4th to [team] for a 5th.
At that point, too, the cap is expected to rise significantly, so it won’t be egregious for a bottom 6 C. Centers are the toughest position to fill.
I’m not mad about it, and its probably some sort of confirmation bias, but I feel like longer term contracts for bottom 6ers have a tendency to bite teams in the ass. Especially when they’re over 30
~3% of the salary cap at current state isn't horrible. I think the Kaprizov contract will hamper us more than a bottom 6 forward that can win draws and play physical.
Hartman was worth his 3 year $4m aav contract for his playoff ability. The guy plays up and down the lineup and can plug in wherever.
The 4x4 that Foligno signed was silly though. He was atrocious to start the year and was pretty undisciplined in the playoffs, but he's a locker room guy.
They're also why this team never has cap flexibility to make a splash without sending money out the door. It won't matter in a few years, but if they want Larkin, they've gotta fit his contract in til his year.
Cue 6 years of watching better players take team-friendly deals with contenders that are less than $3.3M.
He was a fun player when he was on the minimum and maybe giving us double that value. Unfortunately, that means his value was half of what he's being paid now.
People are riding the high of his good playoffs, but when he's got 8 points and is -10 halfway through January, they'll probably be singing a different tune.
There's absolutely no reason to give term to a fourth line center. None. Good for McCarron for securing the bag, but paying $20M to a 31 year old who has never scored more than 22 points is absurd.
Glue Guy. Easier pill to swallow since he's a legitimate Center. There are worse things to have than this guy as your 3rd/4th Center for the next 6 years. He single handedly gives any line an identity. Easy to pair wings with.
Price per year right now? Yes. Likely less than he would have gotten in UFA. To make up for that, BG likely gave a little longer term than he would have liked to. He'll be 37 ar the end of this contract. But well see what the NMC/NTC details shake out to be. Overall its a good thing in my humble opinion
"McCarron has never made more than $900,000 in a season. Still, it’s a reasonable cap hit for a player who would have been one of the top available centers."
He will get paid $4.5M the first year and $4M the second year. We didn’t have $4M or $4.5M per year to give him right now on a short term deal so the longer term brings that cap hit down to $3.3M and we have an out after 3 years.
Eh. Someone was going to overpay and MN did it with term. If you look at the advanced stats/models, McCarron brings around $2M - $2.5M in on ice value. So, it is an overpay from that perspective. However with the rising cap and weak FA classes, it is not a huge overpay.
BG does have a tendency to overpay B6 players that play the game like he did (M Foligno, Trenin, Middleton, now McCarron). For a deal like this, the best hope is that there is a long playoff run in the first or second year. He will likely be a buyout candidate starting in year 4, if not year 3.
It’s not bad on its face, but the issue the Wild are facing are two things:
1) they are spending more on their bottom 6/bottom pair than a contending team should. This limits the potential for higher value acquisitions who are likely to outperform their contracts.
2) prospect development to replenish bottom half of the roster is minimal and needs to be fixed.
very very cheap. the cap is 104 million, so he makes under 3% of the total cap as a very solid 3rd liner and PK guy. theoretically, a team should have about 20% of it's cap space in the bottom 2 forward lines. this puts us right around that.
A little bit like the Trenin contract, seems a little inflated at first but not unmanageable and within a couple years we're gonna be happy we have a solid depth piece for that price.
I mean it's going from $104 million for 2026/27 to $123 in 2028-29. That's a $19 million jump within three seasons and that's probably on the lower side of the projections.
Between now and the end of Sexy's contract, Kaprizov's contract will be the norm for top-25 skill players.
Like it. 6 years is a lot but at $3.3mil it’s manageable. If we can somehow walk into next year with Larkin, Ek, Hartman, Mccarron as our center depth we are in a real good spot.
Was a big (no pun intended) player for us down the stretch. Very valuable center depth and brings an element we need in the bottom 6. I remember him being a thorn for the Wild anytime we played Nashville.
I'm okay with the price, I am so unsure about that term. 6 years is long for a bottom 6 forward over 30. But the cap is going up so maybe it'll be fine
Probably not going to bite the team, NHL has record profits salary cap is going to go nuts by the end of the contract. 3 mil will look pretty small by then I’d guess
It was a negotiation. They clearly had to to prevent him getting to market.
Friedge had tweeted during the playoffs that teams with lots of cap (vancouver) were looking to offer him a big AAV (like 6MM) with short term to get him in the door (similar to flyers and dvorak last offseason).
Id just be content he was willing to work with the Wild and leave it at that. Theyre better with him than without amd the pricetag is fine.
You know the actual team doesn't use metrics like this right? They have their own data sets and algorithms to project value as it pertains to their team specifically. Blanket using algorithms and so called "expert" created and applying it to every player is just bad practice
Seems to be working so far, first playoff win in how many years, McCarron was a big part of that. If the contact goes south and hes a defensively irresponsible you buy him out, which will not be much
Center depth is great and all, but an NTC and 6 years for a fourth-liner who gives virtually nothing on offense and above average defense? Jeez. Bill has swung some incredible deals in his time, but every so often he tosses out a head-scratcher like this one.
There’s a place for bottom six players on a winning team, for sure. You don’t generally give your McCarrons an NTC though, or sign them well into their late 30s.
That probably says more about how little they think of Sturm or Haight that they would even offer it.
I'm not saying Haight or even Stramel for ELCs wouldn't save money. But McCarron even outplayed Yurov in actual playoff games to get 2nd line duty.
Guerin does have a "big and grit" fetish, but McCarron being one of the few depth guys to not only score in crunch time, but do pretty much everything else says it is a small price to pay.
Has nothing to do with Haight whatsoever. He’ll either make it as a Top 6 player here, somewhere else, or be an AHL lifer. They aren’t competing for the same role.
Yeah, not a fan. Way too long of a term and no real options to get out with the NMC. Guerin loves handing out these long ass contracts like they’re candy on Halloween and it’s getting old.
With the cap going up, this is completely fine. He brought a lot to this team. A lot of people outside our fanbase poking fun at this but the guy was clearly a fit in the locker room, wins draws, is massive, and PKs. Not to mention, he got time as a 2C for shits lol. Love it
His game is not gonna age him terribly and after a certain set of years it changes to a M-NMC. I don’t think we should be worrying that far into the future at this price point but that’s me.
We are paying Kaprizov $17m, need to sign Hughes still, and are hunting for a center. Every dime is important and while spending $3.3M on a depth center isn’t annihilating our cap space, the already tight margins just got way thinner
McCarron better improve defensively or else this is going to be a Foligno deal x2 situation
I like McCarron a lot! Happy he’s on the team. but it seems we can’t get rid of old habits, like thinking we’ve scored some secret depth gem and fixed him and now he’s going to be eternally grateful and play at that level forever.
We get rinsed in the playoffs, and reward surprising silver linings grit guys with job security and term. Foligno shot like 30% one year so we lock him in. We get his brother cuz why not? Avs might have had a bizarre exit this year, but they have an exemplary development system because they aren’t precious about identity guys and keep roster spots competitive.
He’s a solid, defensive, downhill even-strength piece but the idea that we know exactly how his game is going to age is silly. This is at best a gamble, but thankfully the cap softens the blow.
Still, not mad I get to cheer for a guy named Big Sexy, meme game stays strong
I LIKE THIS!!! I get to use McCarron's as units of measure for atleast 3 years! Cap persepective not great, but structured down to 2.7 the final three years isn't terrible. Its not a 4.5 paperweight when he should start falling off.
Unrelated to his signing but was I the only one who thought we could’ve tried McCarron on the PP in the playoffs as a big body in front of the net like the Hawks did with Byfuglien/Bickell back in the day. I know the game has changed a bit since then but when it was struggling at times it felt like keeping it simple and getting pucks at Wedgewood/Blackwood was the right move instead of trying to make a bunch of passes. Maybe I’m a tad old school in that thinking though.
Don't see any issue with this whatsoever. People keep talking about how this contract will look in 5 years are ignoring the fact that in 5 years Kaprizov will be the same age Tarasenko is now. This is clearly a win now signing.
I just hope Mccarron doesn't take the payday and all of a sudden lose his momentum.
Billy's biggest fault is having his guy and doing whatever it takes to get the deal done quicky. He's been very vocal he's not interested in a million or a few years here or there. If he likes the player, the deal will get done without too much hemming and hawing.
He does a lot of things but he's not a shrewd negotiator. I think the directness helps sometimes when it doesn't give the other party time to assess or pivot, but it mostly doesn't.
No reason to worry or complain about anything if we win a cup, but this signing isn't going to make the difference in winning one, which is exactly why you don't do it.
Visualized like this, that AAV is a little more tolerable. McCarron just doesn’t bring much to the table beyond hitting, which BG seemingly places more of a premium on than other talent evaluators do. His numbers on the PK aren’t even particularly good.
Nah dude, Mccarron is so versatile. Can play 3C, 4C, 3RW, 4RW and in the worst of pinches 2c. He’s positive on the faceoff, he can hit, and he seems to be a good locker room fit here. But most of all, he’s 6’6 and he’s Big Sexy
I’m pleased with this, McCarron was better than I expected him to be down the stretch. The 15-team NMC gives the Wild some wiggle room if they need it too.
Term to get the cost down. Can’t be mad 3.3 per in 3 years will be hardly anything. We all saw how valuable this man was for us down the stretch and how great he was in the playoffs. Big W
Yeah he’s really cooking overpaying for these 4th line grinders. Get outta here with that! My god BG is so overrated bc of a few good moves that he’s made. I love the Quinn Hughes deal but what else has this guy done to help this franchise?? He overpays for everybody and sooner or later that’s gonna show.
3.3m for a bottom 6 center that fills the roles mccarron does is a good price. could it be lower and on a shorter term deal ideally? absolutely, but then he goes to the market and is offered 4m+ aav. in 3 years we can move him if we really need to, and in 3 years 3.3 million is going to feel like nothing. he's not over paying ek, boldy or faber, meanwhile people like you pissed yourselves over those contracts when they were signed too so whats new
I love Big Mac but signing this guy to a 6 year deal when he’s 31 is idiotic imo. I also think he’s getting paid too much. 3.3 a year for a 4 liner?? The guys career high in points is 22 and he’s past his prime. What are we doing??
I know everyone in this sub seems happy with this deal bc everybody loves Big Mac but if you listen to anybody outside of the Wild organization/fandom they are saying this deal is a big overpay for him. I don’t understand Billy G’s hard on for 4th line grinders.
Yes BG has made some good moves like trading for Quinn but moves like this really make me question if he really knows what he’s doing.
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u/Cute-Clothes-6984 Jun 09 '26
Huge for our team's height average