Bye Bye Gabby

Marian Gaborik's contract is up at the end of the season. In case that means nothing to you, the Slovak Sensation is the leading scorer in Wild history and has been on the team since the first game in 2000. He's the star.

But if the Minnesota Wild organization is to be believed, the Slovak Sensation really doesn't want to play with the Wild anymore. And I tend to believe them. Apparently he's had enough of the State of Hockey.

According to the Wild GM Doug Risebrough via the Strib:

The Wild has indicated it's offering Gaborik a long-term contract in line with the highest-paid players in the NHL

What this means is that the Wild have most likely offered Gaborik a five to eight year deal worth somewhere in the ballpark of $8.5 million a year. And he's turned it down.

Now, Gabby is an amazing player, in the upper echelon among NHL athletes, but he is not worth quite that much money. Since Gaborik has missed 73 games in the last four seasons due to injury (and is already sidelined with an unspecified injury two games into this season), any other team in the NHL should be wary of signing him for $9 million a year. At that salary, the team would be wasting $109,700 per missed game. And since Gaborik has only been averaging about 68 games a season since he joined the NHL, at even $109,700 a game, he should only be making about $7.5 million a year.

So it boils down to a couple options:
A) Gaborik doesn't want to play in Minnesota and wants to go to a Stanley Cup contender
B) Gaborik just has an ego problem and thinks he's worth more than he is
or C) Gaborik's agent, Ron Salcer, is a completely unrealistic bastard

The Wild should be taking some blame here. Losing many of your best players from last year (Rolston, Demitra, Voros, etc, etc) certainly doesn't make your star player want to stick around. Brilliant move there, Risebrough.

No matter who's to blame, the Wild need to act fast. If they can't hammer out this deal (and since talks have stopped, that looks improbable) they need to trade Gaborik quick to get something good out of it. If the Wild wait until the trade deadline or until Gaborik gets hurt again, they going to get completely ass-fucked on a deal.

And don't trade him to Vancouver...