{"id":853963,"date":"2026-06-09T00:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/853963\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T00:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:50:15","slug":"wild-closing-in-on-long-term-deal-with-michael-mccarron-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/853963\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Closing In On Long-Term Deal With Michael McCarron \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, it was noted that the Wild and Michael McCarron<\/a><\/strong> had mutual<\/a> interest<\/a> on extending the forward\u2019s stay in Minnesota.\u00a0 But one of the key sticking points in talks was McCarron\u2019s understandable desire to get some term on his next deal, a luxury he has yet to have in the NHL; his longest contract was his entry-level deal back in 2013.<\/p>\n

It appears he\u2019s about to get his wish.\u00a0 Michael Russo and Joe Smith of The Athletic report (subscription link<\/a>) that McCarron is closing in on signing a long-term deal to remain with the Wild.\u00a0 No information was provided about the term or dollar value the two sides were discussing in their talks.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old came over from Nashville a little before the trade deadline with Minnesota flipping a 2028 second-round pick to get him.\u00a0 Considering that he has largely been a bottom-six forward (at times playing on the fourth line with the Preds), the price tag seemed a little steep on the surface but reflected the shift towards a sellers\u2019 market.<\/p>\n

McCarron played in 20 games following the swap, picking up three goals and two assists along with 40 hits, while averaging 12:40 per night, nearly two minutes below his ATOI in Nashville.\u00a0 However, he was counted on more in the postseason, as his playing time jumped to just under 15 minutes per night while he chipped in with two goals and two helpers in 11 outings.<\/p>\n

Offensively, McCarron managed 17 points during the regular season between the two teams, the second-highest total of his career. \u00a0Overall, over parts of nine NHL seasons between Montreal, Nashville, and Minnesota, he has 36 goals and 43 assists in 381 games. \u00a0Generally speaking, forwards with that type of offensive production aren\u2019t the types of players that teams typically try to lock up on long-term agreements.<\/p>\n

However, there are some intangibles that McCarron brings that makes him stand out, literally in a sense.\u00a0 His six-foot-six frame makes him one of the bigger players in the league while he plays with plenty of physicality.\u00a0 He can shift between both center and the wing, versatility that came in handy for the Wild down the stretch.\u00a0 He can also take a regular role on the penalty kill where, again, that positional versatility comes in handy.\u00a0 It appears GM Bill Guerin is valuing these intangibles if he ultimately winds up doling out a long-term agreement here.<\/p>\n

McCarron made $900K this season and it\u2019s safe to say it\u2019s going to take considerably more than that to get him to forego testing the open market this summer.\u00a0 Speculatively, it wouldn\u2019t be shocking if a deal pushed past the $3MM range, which would give him a per-season salary higher than the sum of money he made over the past three years combined.\u00a0 Russo and Smith noted that the Wild viewed McCarron as their top priority among their pending free agents and it looks like they\u2019re about to check that off the to-do list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, it was noted that the Wild and Michael McCarron had mutual interest on extending the forward\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":816928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[42],"tags":[269002,3112,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-853963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-michael-mccarron","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116717409247232839","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}