The Minnesota Wild have plenty of work to do this offseason when it comes to restricted free agents, but the team is getting closer to scratching one name off the list. Michael Russo of The Athletic tweets that the team is closing in on a long-term contract with Joel Eriksson Ek.
Eriksson Ek, 24, really took his game to a new level this season, scoring 19 goals and 30 points in 56 games. That offensive production, while still valuable, doesn’t compare to the defensive play that the young center brings to the table. Eriksson Ek finished fourth in Selke Trophy voting this season and played an important role on both special teams.
Interestingly, over the last few weeks, it looked like the Wild would wait on extensions for Eriksson Ek and fellow restricted free agent Kevin Fiala until they knew what kind of number Kirill Kaprizov was going to come in at. Either they now have some clarity for that situation, or they’ve decided to move forward with their young center anyway.
A long-term extension will buy out several years of unrestricted free agency for Eriksson Ek, but with such pedestrian numbers in his previous three seasons, it may still come in at a reasonable cap hit. Before this year, he never scored more than eight goals in a single season and had just 66 points in his first 210 NHL games. Those numbers would also come into play had Eriksson Ek gone to arbitration, even though this recent breakout would carry more weight.
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