After Eichel and McDavid sign for less, did the Wild get a bad deal for Kaprizov?

The Minnesota Wild and star winger Kirill Kaprizov agreed to a record-breaking eight-year, $128 million contract on Sept. 30. The deal, with an annual average value (AAV) of $17 million per year, is the richest contract signed in NHL history.

But in the nine days since pen was to put paper on the contract, several notable stars have inked deals of their own that makes it look like Minnesota overpaid.

On October 6, the Oilers agreed to a two-year, $25 million deal with star center Connor McDavid. The $12.5 million AAV pales in comparison to Kaprizov's new deal. McDavid has taken Edmonton to the NHL Finals in each of the past two seasons and is widely considered one of the best players in the game today.

Two days later, both Kyle Connor ($12m AAV) with the Winnipeg Jets and Jack Eichel ($13.5m AAV) with the Vegas Golden Knights landed big money deals that are still a fair amount off what Kaprizov got from Minnesota. Like Kaprizov, both Connor and Eichel signed on for 8 years instead of going with a shorter-term deal like McDavid.

With the new insight into where the market stands, it's easy to wonder if the Wild got fleeced and overpaid for Kaprizov.

While the on-ice production may be in the same ballpark for all four of those guys, the overall results have proven much more fruitful with McDavid and Eichel, both of whom have been to the finals over the past five years. Connor helped the Jets get past the first round of the playoffs last season, which is still more than Kaprizov can say with the Wild, who haven't made it past the first round since 2015.

In a recent interview with The Athletic, Wild general manager Bill Guerin expressed no regrets over the record-breaking contract, even with the hindsight of the McDavid and Eichel deals.

"Look, everybody’s got a price to where they want to play in their market, and Kirill is worth that to us. He’s that important to us," Guerin told The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun.

Guerin added that the team "couldn't" take the chance of letting Kaprizov walking next summer. He added that the worst-case scenario for Minnesota was Kaprizov leaving, not that they overpaid by a mile relative to other deals.

"I don’t apologize or feel like I have to defend it. We did what we felt we had to do to keep our player," Guerin continued.