Two of the Minnesota Wild's most productive forwards are looking to ink pricey long-term deals with the club.
Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter are two of Minnesota's top three remaining restricted free agents (Marcus Foligno being the third), and both are seeking long-term deals that will pay them more than $6 million annually, according to Michael Russo of the Star Tribune.
"We’ll keep plodding along," general Chuck Fletcher said. "Everyone’s working hard, we’ve had good dialogue, but obviously we haven’t gotten to the finish line yet. If you look around the league, negotiations tend to go right down to the arbitration day or the day before or the day after the hearing sometimes even.
"Nothing prods progress more than a deadline."
Both players are scheduled to go to arbitration - Niederreiter on Aug. 3 and Granlund on Aug. 4 - but Fletcher is confident the trend of players signing before going in front of a third party will continue.
"I would expect these would be similar," Fletcher said. "Hopefully we can find a solution on a long-term basis, and if not, we always have the hearing to fall back on and we can revisit it in a year or so."
Granlund is coming off a career year that saw him post 26 goals and 69 points in 81 games, while Niederreiter posted his third straight 20-goal season and hit career highs with 25 goals and 57 points.
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