Wild Make Sneaky Good Signing... More Moves Coming | Minnesota Wild News

The Minnesota Wilds have made a brand new signing and it is causing a lot of questions to be asked. They have signed a goaltender who they have just drafted. We're gonna be breaking it down, going over what this could mean for Philip Gustafson in the coming season, as well as a few more updates surrounding Quinn Hughes' contract negotiation that only came out moments ago from Joe Smith. Folks, we have a lot to break down here in today's video and if you haven't already and you want to stay up to date with everything going on with the Minnesota Wilds, be sure to drop a sub here on the channel. We're on the road to 6k, currently sitting at 5,238 subscribers, so do yourselves a favor by hitting that subscribe button to get up to date with all of your news. I'm gonna make sure to get you covered with everything going on with this team. But folks, I want to get straight into this because it kind of caught me off guard. We saw the images over the past couple of days, but this comes from Michael Russo. The Minnesota Wilds have signed fifth round pick Philip Ruzicka to a three-year entry-level deal. The six-foot-eight Czech goalie will play with the Brandon Weekings next season, where he played this most recent one after being in the import draft. Now, very rarely do we see kind of late-round, especially goaltenders, be signed to an entry-level contract right away, and especially someone like the Minnesota Wilds, who have a lot of goaltenders right now, especially in the NHL and the AHL, they still have a couple, but there's a lot of kind of conversation surrounding this about what this could mean for the Minnesota Wilds going forward, and I'm gonna be covering that here in just one moment. Before we do, though, folks, we have a word from the sponsor of this video, Otis Edge. Sports betting changed the moment apps took over. Live betting, instant decisions, and endless opportunities are all at your fingertips, but they also make it easier than ever with emotional bets and chase losses. That's where Otis Edge Analytics comes in. Otis Edge is where passion meets data. It gives you a smarter way to bet on a daily effort with in-depth analytics and a disciplined strategy that's built for a long-term success. Download the Otis Edge app today and see why their quickly-growing community is getting ahead of the game, because that's the Otis Edge. Now, if we go ahead and look at Philip Rozeka's stats over his career thus far, still super young. I think there's nothing to really judge off of this thus far, but if we do go ahead and look at it, you kind of look from his Checkia years where playing with, most recently, Mountain Field, going to Brandon Wheat Kings last year, and you see elite prospects. They have him listed going into 26-27, still playing with Mountain Field, but it is confirmed he will be playing with the Brandon Wheat Kings. Now, you look at his stats last year with the Brandon Wheat Kings, a 319 goals against a 906 state percentage. Not super great, but for a league that has a lot of offensive talent, it actually is pretty good, but where things really, I think, kind of spotlighted things for the Minnesota Wild was his four playoff games. Played four games, two losses, two overtime losses, but a 936 state percentage, a 247 goals against. He was very, very good, and even throughout his past history, you see the U-17 Mountain Field, he was great. 945, uh, 943 state percentage, excuse me, and a 180 goals against, and he still has a lot of learning to do. I mean, just like any goaltender who does get drafted in kind of the later rounds, you're going to see a lot of development, but this is something I think is going to be really good because you give him that option of having and being able to use Minnesota Wild kind of assets in the offseason. He's under contract. He's able to still go ahead and learn from these guys. That's going to be a big bonus for him because even when we can, first of all, consider his height, you know, a tall goaltender, you're going to try and draft him anyways. I mean, we look at what was posted yesterday, and I put this on the Wild Digest Facebook. Be sure to go check it out if you haven't already. You just look at the picture of him. It's absolutely kind of mind-boggling how tall he is next to Alan Walsh, the NHL agent. He's huge, and I think that being able to have a guy like this in the system, developed for the next three years while he's still under his ELC, it really is going to be a good thing, but it lines up at a very interesting rate because, I mean, first of all, we look at where things are with the goaltending for the Minnesota Wild. We know that Calvin Pickard's in the NHL, Jesper Walsh did, Phillip Gustafson. You look at this as the goaltenders under contract for this upcoming season. Riley Mercer, Chase Bootsie, and Phillip Rozeka, who obviously will not be playing this year, but when you name that, as well as, you know, the third goalie of the Wild to have in the NHL roster right now, Calvin Pickard, you have a pretty solid group of goaltenders here, but the thing that really intrigues me is when you're looking at a three-year entry-level deal, you're looking at the time that that has, plus the timeline that things line up with Phillip Gustafson. First year of a 6.8 million dollar deal. I think that, you know, we all thought that there may have been a trade had he not had surgery this offseason, and there still may have been, but at this point right now, for the start of next season, that will not be the case, but I think when we're looking at the way things are playing out here, if we're looking at the goaltending depth the Wilds have, it is pretty solid, and I'm kind of curious to see if they do not end up pushing him out necessarily, but you give him a couple years, or you give him, you know, as long as he needs to see if he can continue the pace he did last year before kind of falling off a little bit towards the tail end, which was leading to Jesper Wahlstedt starting the playoffs, or if they go ahead and think that, look at anybody else, if Riley Mercer could be ready, if Calvin Pickard is a backup, I think there's a very interesting thing that's lining up here with, of course, Kaspersky and Phillip Ruzicka all lining up, as well as Riley Mercer technically lining up to, I don't know, the middle of Phillip Gustafson's contract. So folks, let me know what you think about this. Do you think we'll eventually lead to a Phillip Gustafson trade? Do we have a why for yes and a comment and for no? You know, I don't think anytime soon necessarily, but I'm wondering if they're lining up the goaltenders to see over a couple of years time if anybody has really kind of emerged as this next star that we could use as either trade bait, as a player that can jump into the NHL to get rid of a $6.8 million contract that, you know, we'll be playing only 50% of the games this year at this point, but it seems like or even less with that injury. So let me know what you think down below. But very quickly, folks, before we do, I kind of go on to the next topic here a little bit of a Quinn Hughes, kind of want to just show how good the WHO is for those who really haven't paid attention to it or don't know. This is their points from last year. Obviously, you're looking at a massive group of players who were drafted this year. A lot of those who have not yet been drafted, I think also you have to consider Landon DuPont, you know, super young defenseman, going to be the first overall pick next year, at least right now by a projection. It's a very good offensive lead. I think for goaltenders, it's not the most friendly. So being able to see if Philip Ruzicka really gets a very good start in the WHO, that'll be a positive sign wherever he may end up going after that. So I'm liking where things are certainly playing out with all of that and how things are going to be going. I mean, you look at this, well, one of the three picks this year, to me, makes sense the wild one to try to get him involved in something. If you get a 6.8 goalie, I think immediately you have exactly what you're looking for in pretty much any situation. So let me know down below what you think. But we do have a few updates here from Joe Smith surrounding Quinn Hughes. I'm going to do this before we conclude this one. When asked about the question, if where things are standing, if there's any going to be any push going on, he said they're working on it, but a deal isn't imminent per league. Sources who were granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, that does not mean there should be a cause for concern. The Wilds have made it clear that re-signing Hughes is their top priority this summer. It's understandable for fans to feel stressed the longer negotiations go, but we don't expect this to be like the Capri Sun negotiations, which started in September. Minnesota's management team has been quiet publicly. As far as we know, both sides are still working towards the same goal. And kind of continued on with another question here with this one. I'm kind of talking about the same idea of the contract itself. What we've been reporting for a while is the deal is likely for three years. Contracted projection is an AAV between 16 and 18 million, depending on term, with many reasons why those numbers would make sense. That would mean Minnesota would have a huge chunk of their 17 million, that kicking off this season. That could challenge the roster building, but when you consider these two are the league's best players at their positions, and going to rate these days, you know, I think an example of the Leo Carlson offer sheet, this is a dilemma most GMs wouldn't mind having. So, you know, we know the contract cap is, the cap base, excuse me, is going up. And I think if you look at Anaheim Ducks, someone who were going to have Cutter Gauthier for 15 million, and Leo Carlson for 18, I think I'd much rather have Carrillo at 17 and Quinn at, you know, 18 or less, whatever it end up, uh, whatever it will end up being. So still positive updates on that side, but still, we don't know just yet where things and when things are going to go, but there is no need or concern as it goes. So folks, let me know down below what you think about all this here in the comments, but that is all I have in this one. If you did enjoy, give it a like, hit the sub button as well. I am signing out, so thank you for watching. Hope you have a great day.