The Minnesota Wild took advantage of a lull in the free agent market to ensure their captain Mikko Koivu, who wasn?t yet a free agent, would remain with the team for the next eight years. While this was a positive step in providing stability for an organization that has been without it, it comes at costly price. The total contract will run for seven seasons beginning in 2011-12 with a total salary of $47.25M, the richest contract in Wild history; the annual cap hit will be $6.75M each season. That cap hit puts Koivu 18th among NHL forwards, but it?s a murky group. Some of the players higher than him were signed right after the salary cap was implemented and before GMs had a proper gauge of the market. Scott Gomez, Chris Drury, Brad Richards and Thomas Vanek, for example, likely wouldn?t be seeing average salaries in excess of $7M in today?s market (Richards maybe). Others on the list may be within the ball park, but would surely have lowered average salaries, such as Vincent Lecavalier, Eric Staal, Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley. Koivu?s salary isn?t as out of line as one may think; it is comparable to recent extensions to Patrick Marleau ($6.9M) and Nicklas Backstrom ($6.7M), but personally I would rather have those two than Koivu any day of the week. It is also higher than those given to Chicago?s Cup winning duo of Jonathon Toews and Patrick Kane ($6.3M), as well as Detroit stars Pavel Datsyuk ($6.7M) and Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083M), all players I would take ahead of Koivu if given the opportunity. This isn?t meant to demean Koivu, as he is a very good player in his own right, but I wouldn?t consider him to be an elite player or a star. The former 6th overall pick led the club in points (71) and assists (49) for the second consecutive season, along with 22 goals ? all career highs and slight improvements on his 20-47-67 campaign in 2008-09. In his modest five year career, he has 255 points in 362 games. Like many captains in the NHL, Mikko can?t be fully described just by point totals. Last season he ranked second in the league in faceoffs won (864) and was eighth in faceoff percentage (56.9%). He is also a very good penalty killer, and has five shorthanded goals over the last two seasons. His leadership abilities can?t be quantified, but it should be noted that he is the first and only permanent captain in franchise history. For Minnesota, this was as much about locking up a vital part of their team, as it was about not re-creating the Marion Gaborik saga. Gaborik was the Wild?s first ever draft pick (a year before Koivu) and their first star. He said all of the right things about wanting to stay with the small market club, but ultimately opted for free agency and took a huge payday with the Rangers ($7.5M cap hit for five years). The Wild absolutely needed to show their fans that they were committed to winning, and to doing their utmost in establishing continuity. The downfall is that the next CBA could see a decrease in the cap, and this could really hinder the club financially in their attempts to build a winner around Koivu and whomever might be on the roster in the coming years. Grade for Minnesota: B For Koivu, he simply cashed in after a career year. While he isn?t likely to decrease his point totals from the past season, it is hard to see him as more than a 75-point per year player throughout this contract. Similar players with that production (Tomas Plekanec and Ryan Kesler) signed this season for $5M cap hits, so Koivu sure took advantage of his captaincy and other intangibles as best he could. Word is that Koivu?s agent was going to get him $7M annually on the open market next season, so this is somewhat of a hometown discount. Not sure I buy that, but kudos to Koivu and his agent for pulling it off. Grade for Koivu: A Nick can be reached via email nickobergan@hotmail.com or @NickObergan