Wild Nearing New Contract With Daemon Hunt

The Minnesota Wild are nearing a new contract with restricted free-agent defenseman Daemon Hunt per Michael Russo of The Athletic. This deal is expected to come through before the July 5th deadline to file for salary arbitration. Hunt will sacrifice his only year of arbitration eligibility in favor of a new deal in Minnesota.

The Wild awarded Hunt with his rookie season in the NHL last year. He recorded six assists in 32 appearances, while battling through a lower-body injury in December and an upper-body injury in February. Hunt didn’t break out as a rookie – but he did enough to secure Minnesota’s role of extra defender after the departure of David Jiricek and Travis Dermott last season.

The 2020 third-round pick has now appeared in 45 NHL games across three seasons. He has also appeared in 173 AHL games since debuting in the league in 2022. Hunt has notched 59 points and a minus-11 in his minor-league career.

Hunt will fight to hang onto his seventh-defender role through the 2026-27 season. He may have gained a step in that challenge after Minnesota traded Jacob Middleton to the Calgary Flames. The Wild returned veteran left-defender Olli Maatta to fill Middleton’s role in that move – though Hunt’s physicality could make him a better replacement than the soon-to-be-32-year-old Maatta. Hunt will try to push Maatta’s standing in the daily lineup, while facing pressure from Viking Gustafsson Nyberg, and RFAs Carson Lambos and David Spacek, in the AHL.