{"id":444541,"date":"2024-07-01T18:29:26","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T22:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=444541"},"modified":"2024-07-01T18:29:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T22:29:26","slug":"minnesota-wild-extend-top-four-defenceman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/07\/01\/minnesota-wild-extend-top-four-defenceman\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Wild Extend Top-Four Defenceman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With little salary cap space this offseason to acquire free agents, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/07\/01\/minnesota-wild-signs-forward-with-potential\/\" target=\"_self\">besides forward<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/treniya01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yakov Trenin<\/a>, General Manager and President of Hockey Operations <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gueribi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bill Guerin<\/a> has directed his attention to the current roster. The Minnesota Wild have extended defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/middlja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jacob Middleton<\/a> to a four-year, 4.35 AAV contract.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">4 year extension for Jake Middleton in Minnesota. Aav of $4.35 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DarrenDreger\/status\/1807878979975598568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 1, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Minnesota Wild Extend Jake Middleton<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During season 2021-22, Minnesota traded backup goalie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kahkoka01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kaapo Kahkonen<\/a> for<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/sharks\/\" target=\"_self\"> San Jose Shark<\/a> defenceman Jake Middleton. At first, the trade seemed underwhelming. In Middleton\u2019s <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/middlja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">59 games before joining the state of hockey,<\/a> the defenceman had a total of 12 points, a plus\/minus rating of 02, and 82 PIM on his stat sheet. However, once Middleton joined the franchise, his game elevated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last season, Middleton played 80 games, acquired 25 points, and averaged for TOI for 19 minutes and 49 seconds. With the Wild, Middleton has become a trusted D-man. When needed, the 6-foot 3-inch skater can serve as an enforcer and defend his teammates. Before 5 foot, 9-inch Captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/spurgja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jared Spurgeon<\/a> was injured, Middleton served as his skating partner on the top pairing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Why Now?<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is not the first offseason extension Guerin has granted. Last offseason, Guerin extended forwards <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hartmry01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Hartman<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/z\/zuccama01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mats Zuccarello<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/f\/foligma01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marcus Foligno<\/a>, despite having another year on their prior contracts. Guerin was criticized for the early extensions. If Guerin had waited longer to visit the idea of an extension, perhaps he would have seen Foligno\u2019s and Zuccarello\u2019s decrease in scoring. With that, those extensions would have been cheaper, shorter or nonexistent. This offseason, we see Guerin again drawing up an extension contract with Middleton.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Furthermore, Minnesota\u2019s AHL team the Iowa Wild has been going through growing pains. Prospects Carson Lambos, Ryan O\u2019Rourke, Jack Peart, Kyle Masters, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/huntda01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-01_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daemon Hunt<\/a> and others are not ready to perform at the NHL level. Additionally, Minnesota believes Middleton could be worth more if the contract is done later. Thus, extending Middleton now is an opportunity to solidify a trusted top-four pairing defenceman at a cheaper cost.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With little salary cap space this offseason to acquire free agents, besides forward Yakov Trenin, General Manager and President of Hockey Operations Bill Guerin has directed his attention to the current roster. The Minnesota Wild have extended defenceman Jacob Middleton to a four-year, 4.35 AAV contract.\u00a0 4 year extension for Jake Middleton in Minnesota. Aav [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4643,"featured_media":444549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,2,4547,30,4548],"tags":[3869],"class_list":["post-444541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","category-hockey","category-wild","category-nhl","tag-jacob-middleton"],"modified_by":"Alec Roberson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4643"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}