Wild working on extension with forward Jordan Greenway

The Minnesota Wild are on fire, winning eight of their last nine games including a 4-3 victory over the New York Islanders Sunday night. Those good vibes appear set to continue for one pending RFA, as Michael Russo of The Athletic has heard rumblings that the team is closing in on an extension with Jordan Greenway. The scribe posits that it would come in around the same $3.1M cap hit that Marcus Foligno earned last January.

Greenway, 24, has just four goals and 13 points in 33 games this season but–as Russo points out–is a part of one of the best defensive lines in the NHL, when deployed alongside Joel Eriksson Ek and Foligno. That line has yet to allow a goal against at 5-on-5, certainly providing good value to the Wild despite Greenway’s relatively pedestrian offensive numbers.

In fact, after posting 32 points in 56 games last season, it seemed like his offensive game was set to really take off in 2021-22. It hasn’t, but the 6’6″ forward has increased his physicality and is contributing to the penalty kill. 

An extension, if it does come down the pipe, could potentially buy out both of Greenway’s remaining arbitration years, as he could become an unrestricted free agent in the 2024 offseason. If it buys out some of those UFA years as well, a $3M cap hit would certainly be a bargain for a capable middle-six player that can provide value in several different ways.

The interesting part of Greenway’s development, of course, is that he’s no longer really needed to be a top-six player. The Wild have even younger players like Marco Rossi and Matt Boldy that are going to take up those spots, the latter already playing a big role in his short NHL career. According to Russo, Boldy has been told he’s going to stay with the Wild for the foreseeable future after recording nine points in nine games so far.

That ten-game entry-level contract threshold that many prospects deal with is not applicable to the 20-year-old Boldy, who is already in the second year of his ELC after signing last spring.