Ever since the Minnesota Wild pulled off the Independence Day coup of signing the two biggest stars in the 2012 free agency class for matching 13-year, $98-million deals, the hockey world has been waiting to see how Chuck Fletcher and Craig Leopold’s massive move would end.
Today, in a surprising bit of news, we learned that both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter will be bought out of the last four years of each of their deals. The faces of the franchise for nearly a decade will each be paid $6.7 million ($13.4 million for the pair), with the total cost of the buyout spread over the next eight season — for a price tag of $1.