Wild Player Salaries 2011-12

As the Wild open up training camp this week, I thought I should do a post on the player salaries and where they are in relation to the $64.3 million salary cap set by the NHL this season. The list will also include some buyouts to players from previous seasons.

FORWARDS-$34,397,167

Dany Heatley-$7,500,000
Mikko Koivu-$6,750,000
Pierre-Marc Bouchard-$4,080,000
Matt Cullen-$3,500,000
Devin Setoguchi-$3,000,000
Guillaume Latendresse-$2,500,000
Eric Nystrom-$1,400,000
Cal Clutterbuck-$1,400,000
Kyle Brodziak-$1,150,000
Darroll Powe-$1,066,667
Casey Wellman-$850,500
Colton Gillies-$625,000
Brad Staubitz-$575,000

DEFENSEMAN-$12,355,833

Marek Zidlicky-$4,000,000
Nick Schultz-$3,500,000
Greg Zanon-$1,933,333
Mike Lundin-$1,000,000
Marco Scandella-$845,833
Clayton Stoner-$550,000
Jared Spurgeon-$526,667

GOALTENDERS-$6,750,000

Niklas Backstrom-$6,000,000
Josh Harding-$750,000

BUYOUTS-$1,302,778

Mark Parrish-$927,778 (Bought out in July '08)
Cam Barker-$375,000 (Bought out last season)

NHL SALARY CAP FOR 2011-12:$64,300,000

WILD'S TOTAL CAP HIT FOR 2011-12: $54,805,778
WILD'S CAP SPACE: $9,494,222

Its pretty great that the Wild have managed to get this $9+ million in cap space. They seemingly were a team that always toed the line when it came to the cap, in the previous regime. And with the moves the team made this offseason, hats off to Chuck Fletcher for giving his squad ample space to make a trade or two during the season if they so desire. Or he could just simply save that cap space for the next offseason and sign a marquee free agent for the 2012-13 season. We will just have to wait and find out...

(The salary numbers are courtesy of CapGeek.com)