Bouchard and the Wild avoid an aribitration hearing by agreeing on a five year, $20.4M contract including a "verbal" no-trade agreement for at least the first two years. While there may be some question as to exactly the ramifications of the "verbal" part of that pact, nonetheless it was enough to get a solid young player under contract at a cap-friendly term, and for a long time.
Kudos to Risebrough for getting another piece of the young core signed, sealed and delivered - and for good money. PMB, Burns, Schultz and Koivu are all signed for a minimum of three more seasons, at a TOTAL cap hit of just over $15M. That's a terrific number.
Kudos also to Bouchard for doing the team-first thing. There seems to be little question that he could have made more on the open market as a UFA next summer (barring a bad season or an injury) but he followed in the footsteps of Mikko, Nick and Brent before him by putting the team ahead of himself.
Now, it's on to Marian Gaborik as the final piece of this summer's puzzle for DR. If DR can spin the same web around Gaby that he spun around the other three this team should be complete - and a fairly complete team - by the time they get to Grand Forks.
NiNY
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