Nino Niederreiter is no longer as polarizing as he once was, but the reputation he developed for himself early on in his career still lingers.
Initially drafted fifth overall by the New York Islanders in 2010, the Swiss-born forward — who played his junior hockey for the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks — was ultimately dealt to the Minnesota Wild over concerns about playing time and an assignment to the AHL.
He was Jonathan Drouin before Jonathan Drouin had even been drafted, only with just one point in 55 games one season to make his case for not needing minor league development.
The trade, in hindsight, probably paid off significantly more for the Wild than it did for the Islanders – even with the (very) off chance that Eamon McAdam pans out into an NHL goaltender. Niederreiter is now a perennial 20-goal scorer (with 24 goals in 2015 and 20 goals this past year) who came just shy of 50 points for this last season; given that he’s only 23, Minnesota likely has a top-six forward for years to come.
Niederreiter has put up improving stats in every NHL season he’s played for Minnesota, and his underlying numbers are some of the best on the team. With one year left on his current deal though, the Wild have a decision to make: do they wait for the RFA to finish off this final year before they start negotiations, or do they try to lock him up long-term early?
Generally, teams try to lock up their biggest names before they have a chance to make negotiations difficult, and they try to do so with their pending unrestricted free agents more often than they do with pending RFA’s like Niederreiter. In theory, the team is in much more control over his next deal than Niederreiter himself would be, so they don’t have as much urgency to get something locked down now.
Given his progression over the last few years, they may be prudent to sign a longer-term deal as soon as they’re able.
The 23-year-old winger will enter the final year of a bridge deal worth $2.666 million per season over a three year period when the upcoming season starts. So far, he’s outperformed his salary every year of the deal and there’s little reason to assume that he won’t do so in the final year, as well.
Just looking at his numbers, it’s easy to consider Niederreiter one of the most promising players of his age in the NHL. His two 20-plus goal seasons as a 22-year-old and a 23-year-old come along with impressive possession numbers; he’s one of the best possession drivers on the Wild, posting a Corsi For Relative of 8.53 last year at even strength.
Translation? Niederreiter’s possession metrics were a full eight percent better than his team’s average. Given that the league’s team possession metric averages span a little less than 15% from the best team to the worst, that’s huge. That’s nearing Patrice Bergeron range.
His numbers look even better when you look at the winger’s usage.
In Niederreiter’s 24-goal season, the then-22-year-old forward was deployed as a primarily defensive forward. He averaged just 14:33 minutes of ice time per night, and made 57.9 percent of his zone starts in the defensive zone. This past year, his zone usage shifted a bit. He made just 48 percent of his zone starts in the defensive zone in the 2015-16 season – but was still given just 15:33 minutes of ice time a night.
That means that the Wild were getting second- or third-line minutes from a player, but receiving first- or second-line offensive output and team-leading possession numbers.
For the Wild, there’s a chance that newly hired head coach Bruce Boudreau will finally deploy Niederreiter using ice times better suited to the numbers he’s been putting up for the team over the last few years, which could very easily mean a jump in his production from what he’s delivered while playing in a supplementary role. Given his ability to drive possession, it’s not unreasonable to assume that an increase in minutes – and responsibility – could keep him in the 25-goal range, potentially recording even better stats in a position to succeed.
For the Wild, that could mean even more money.
If the team decides to lock him up early, they’ll still have to pay. Nothing about the production Niederreiter has offered in the last few years has given the team any reason to believe he won’t be worth north of $3 million per season, likely hitting somewhere above $4 million instead. If players like Mikkel Boedker can ask for north of $5 million per season, Niederreiter has every right to want to get paid as well.
The earlier the team locks him up, though, the more likely they are to settle with an affordable deal.
No one wants to assume that a player will revert to being difficult when trying to get paid, just based on a history of a standoff with his former NHL club.
It would be unfair to Niederreiter, who will head to Canada to play in the World Cup of Hockey this September, to automatically imply that he’ll drag things out until the Wild pay him exactly what he’s expecting to get. There’s no evidence in the last few years that this would be how things play out.
Given that Niederreiter has shown a history of wanting to be treated in accordance with his perceived value, though, it’s hard to assume that the Wild will be able to give him anything less than a market-value deal. The earlier they manage to lock him up, the more likely they are for that market value to remain in an affordable range for them.
Heading into the 2016-17 season, the Wild already have $63 million in cap space wrapped up, with both Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba due for new contracts this summer. That number only drops to $48 million already committed for the following season – across just 21 players. The Wild will be expected to lock up Niederreiter, Erik Haula, and Mikael Granlund this coming summer; while one of them could end up taking an affordable deal, the Wild won’t have a ton of space to work with.
This isn’t to say that the Wild need to sign Niederreiter to the next Zach Parise deal. The Central Division club has made their bed financially, and it’s going to hurt them soon.
If they can make a financially prudent decision with an early deal for the forward, though, that’s one step towards alleviating their burden. They might as well try.
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