Zach Parise and Ryan Suter joined the Minnesota Wild together in 2012 and are now leaving the franchise together nine years later. The organization announced on Tuesday that Parise and Suter were bought out of their contracts and have thus ended their run with the team.
“I want to thank Zach and Ryan for everything they did for our organization over the past nine seasons, both on and off the ice,” said team owner Craig Leipold in a statement. “They were tremendous ambassadors for our team and helped us win a lot of games. I wish them nothing but the best going forward.”
Parise and Suter both had four years left on matching 13-year, $98 million contracts. According to ESPN, both players still want to play and will hit the free agency market.
The Wild, on the other hand, are looking to reshape their team and will use the created cap space to extend their young stars Kirill Kaprizov and Kevin Fiala. The move also gives the team two additional protected spaces ahead of the upcoming expansion draft, considering that Parise and Suter couldn’t be moved due to clauses in their contracts.
Since joining the Wild, Parise and Suter helped the franchise to establish itself as a perennial Stanley Cup playoffs participant. In nine years of the duo’s stay in Minnesota, the Wild only missed the postseason once. Still, they never managed to make a deep run, failing to progress past the second round in eight attempts.
Parise played a total of 558 games with the Wild, scoring 199 goals and adding 201 assists for a total of 400 points.
Stutter contributed 369 points (55 goals and 314 assists) in 656 games. He also made three All-Star appearances and had one First All-Star Team selection while in Minnesota.
