Wilderness Walk: The salary cap is going to go up next season?

That’s Wild

• Moving on from Zach Parise and Ryan Suter is going to be “seamless” according to Minnesota Wild head coach Dean Evason. [StarTribune]

ICYMI...

• Speaking of the rookies, Marco Rossi is going to get some warm-up time playing for Austria in the 2022 Olympic qualifiers later this month. [Hockey Wilderness]
• New Wild defender Jon Merrill is very good defensively, but that might prevent another rookie from being in the lineup over him. [Hockey Wilderness]

Off the trail...

• While NHL general managers are trying to figure out how to navigate this flat cap world, that might not even be a thing anymore. According to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, the NHL salary cap is going to raise a whole million, to $82.5 million for the 2022-23 season, and will then steadily increase. [Daily Faceoff]

• The Jack Eichel sweepstakes are slowly dying down, but it’s an issue beyond just teams not wanting to pay the acquisition price. Surgeries, player agents, and more. [ESPN]
• The Penguins fans seem to be settling into their Ron Hextall era. Accepting the boring truths and such. [Pensburgh]
• It’s starting to look like this might be the year that Joe Thornton finally hangs them up. Here’s hoping he doesn’t, though. [NHL.com]
• The NHL and the IOC seem to be having trouble coming to an agreement over media rights, but as far as we know the players will still be going to the Games. [ESPN]