Parise isn’t going to be on the roster next year. The question is, how much of his money will be off the books. I think we could find a team that would trade for his deal if we added significant futures. There were teams that didn’t even want to get to the cap floor this year that are hurting from Covid. Having his AAV much higher than actual money would help those teams (even if the money isn’t super low yet) The question will be if the price in futures is worth it.
and, even if Parise was on the team, we could make it work with the cap. You can’t be paying bottom 6 guys millions of dollars, but the teams that win often aren’t.
You also can't be paying 4 D-men $6M+ a year either:
2021-22 Season
Suter - $7.57M
Spurgeon - $7.53M
Brodin - $6M
Dumba - $6M
No other team in the NHL has that. And that doesn't include Ian Cole/Soucy probably combining for $5M as your 5/6 pairings.
Even this year, the Wild are #1 for defensive salary and #17 for Forwards. It'll have to shift eventually (and sadly) soon. Just as others have said 1C's are the hardest to find and that defensive centers are a dime a dozen, so are #4 defensemen. But in noway is Parise's salary the absolute reason (I didn't say it isn't either) the Wild are in cap hell with resigning players. It is largely having to pay elite defensive players to bail out lackluster goalies year in and year out. It felt like this year was finally a year where they didn't need to have an elite blue line because both goalies were actually competent. What I believe that Parise's salary is doing is merely restricting the team from signing a marquee Free Agent. Other teams are eating high contracts as well right now. Dustin Brown is still getting a paycheck....and I have no doubt that the Blackhawks are gonna regret the Toews resigning in 2 years, if they don't already.
7.5 is going to look like minimal compared to the ones that are $8.5M+ that will flounder soon.