He's in mid season form, and has been since the start of the season. Zuccarello continues to be effective and have great chemistry with him, and Rossi is playing the best he has ever played, allowing MN to play JEE with Boldy to give the Wild two dangerous lines.
There’s another gear. He is not where he was to end last year to my eye. He is not scoring those goals where he wheels out to the top of the dot from behind the net at full speed and fires a laser wrister top corner.
End of last year he was playing with Boldy and JEE and they dominated everyone at both ends of the ice. But it was a one line team, with crap goaltending.
I get that , Kaps goals this year have been from the dirty areas with help. That’s great. I’m just missing those ozone domination shifts where he ends up firing a laser or beats multiple people with the puck on his stick and I think we are going to see some of that as we get further into the year
Really? Should be interesting how it unfolds. He likely will want the panarin contract at the same cap% when it was signed
Realistically, with his full NTC and his importance to the franchise, he can get anything he wants from Minnesota. The question is how far he wants to push it, and if he wants it from us at all.
Leipold will give him 16M x 8 years if that’s what it takes. Probably not the best decision but if that’s what it takes to keep him I imagine he would go there.
And honestly, with Draisaitl just getting $14M, that wouldn't be too far outside realm of reasonable. I know Draisaitl has an MVP and a few seasons better than anything Kaprizov has done (as of yet), but Kaprizov has no McDavid factor either.
With the new CBA coming into play and an expected bigtime cap jump I think it’s possible. Last year people were saying the Patterson deal and I always thought there was no way. He’s going to reset the market here or somewhere else.
His speed is still above average though. And he can make quick bursts, which is more helpful than a super high top end.
