All eyes are on Kirill Kaprizov’s contract situation with Wild offseason underway

Kirill Kaprizov is a homebody during the offseason, the Wild superstar returning to Russia to hang out with friends and stay with his family.

Maybe he will take a vacation if they want to travel. Otherwise, Kaprizov will go camping and fishing, which he has never done in Minnesota.

“I need to come before camp early a little bit and go fishing,” he said. “But I hear it’s good here, huh? One of the best?”

The bigger question is whether Kaprizov will have a new contract in tow with him for that trip back to the Twin Cities.

Now that the Wild’s offseason is officially underway after the team was knocked out of the Stanley Cup playoffs in six games by the Vegas Golden Knights, Kaprizov’s future will headline a potentially transformative summer for the Wild because President of Hockey Operations Bill Guerin will have about $20 million in salary cap space to spend.

“This is my agent job, talk with Billy,” Kaprizov said. “But we will see. I love everything here. But should be all good.”

Kaprizov, 28, has one season left on his current deal, a five-year, $45 million contract the winger signed just before training camp in 2021.

He is eligible to sign an extension beginning July 1, a deal that could make him one of the highest-paid players in the NHL. The Wild can offer as much as an eight-year contract, but if he doesn’t re-up, Kaprizov can test free agency next summer; the longest he could sign with another team would be for seven years.

“Probably,” he said about whether he wants to get a deal done before the season starts. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Longtime linemate Mats Zuccarello hopes Kaprizov sticks around and joked not much matters to Kaprizov other than getting Zuccarello on the Wild payroll for an additional eight years.

“No, to be honest with you, I don’t interfere,” Zuccarello said. “I’m his friend. If he needs my opinion on something, I’ll give it to him as a friend. I don’t interfere with his contracts or where he should be.

“He’s a smart kid and he wants to win, and if he feels like he can do that here, it’s here. So, at the end of the day, it’s not up to me where he plays. I’ll support him in whatever choice he makes as a friend, and that’s all I can do.”

As for his own future, Zuccarello also has one more year left on his current deal and is undecided whether that will be his last in the NHL.

He wants to see how the season goes and how he feels.

“I don’t want to be a guy who just plays to play,” the 37-year-old winger said. “I want to play because I feel like I’m good enough to play. So, that’s why I gotta take the next year to see where the team’s going, where I would fit in.”

Together, Zuccarello and Kaprizov were a dominant duo at the beginning of the season before injuries sidelined both.

Zuccarello was the first to get hurt, on a shot to the midsection by teammate Brock Faber in November, and then Kaprizov sat out because of a lower-body injury for which he eventually underwent surgery; he ended up missing half the season.

In 41 games, Kaprizov tallied 25 goals and 31 assists for 56 points.

“It’s tough because you feel so good the early season,” said Kaprizov, who mentioned he’s “good now” and doesn’t need any more surgery. “Feel so good, and then it’s surgery coming. You don’t play like three months, three-and-a-half. It’s just a little bit mental, too, a little bit tough because you’re always without team.

“You’re alone. You’re home. You’re staying here, no travels, just do your stuff every day in the gym and stuff like this. It’s a tough year, but something happened. I can do nothing with this.”

Kaprizov returned with four games left in the regular season and then led the Wild with nine points in the playoffs.

His five goals tied him with Matt Boldy for the most on the team, production that surprised Kaprizov since he thought coming back from surgery would be harder on him.

The Wild combined Kaprizov with Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek against the Golden Knights, a line that clicked a season earlier, instead of reuniting Kaprizov with Zuccarello consistently.

“I think we could play together,” Zuccarello said. “I don’t know yet, but six years before has been OK. No, you gotta play with who you gotta play with. Obviously, you’d like to play with Kirill, but when you don’t, you gotta make the best out of it.

“Yeah, that’s just how it goes.”

Already, Zuccarello believes the Wild will have “fun” next season.

The Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts will no longer cost the team nearly $15 million, instead eating up only roughly $1.67 million of the Wild’s budget to give the team more money to apply to the active roster.

“Add some pieces to [Kaprizov] and Bolds and the young core,” Zuccarello said. “The future is really good for this team.”

Kaprizov has the same perspective.

He wants to win and, despite another first-round exit, is encouraged about what lies ahead for the Wild.

Plus, he has gotten more comfortable over the years — so much so that this feels like his second home.

“We play good in playoffs,” Kaprizov said. “We lose I know this first round. But I feel how we play and stuff like this, I feel it was pretty good team. We have good chance to go in second round because it was close. It was 2-1 then two overtime games then 3-2. It was nice series.

“I know it’s bad when you lose first round, but it’s frustrating all the time. But I feel for the future, too, we have nice team.”