It was noted here at season’s end that if Wild wing Kirill Kaprizov doesn’t want to stay in Minnesota, there is nothing the team can do to keep him here.

We got the first substantial whiff of that on Wednesday, and it didn’t smell good.

According to reporter Frank Seravalli, an NHL insider who contributes to Bleacher Report, Kaprizov has turned down an eight-year contract extension, the league maximum, worth $16 million a year.

Quick summary: Kaprizov and his agent, Paul Theofanous — who is in the Twin Cities this week — just turned down the most lucrative deal in NHL history. So, the Wild didn’t lowball their star left wing, and he didn’t blink.

Yeah, it’s the opening salvo, and it’s assumed general Bill Guerin and team owner Craig Leipold have more in the bank vault they can Hoover into Kaprizov’s bank account, but it’s not a good start for Minnesota’s NHL team. Does Kaprizov — as he has said many times — really want to be here?

Is this a typical negotiation, when you’re immediately offered the biggest contract in your sport’s history and turn it down?

Let’s be honest, as a competitive entity, the Wild have not built a case that they can get Kaprizov’s name on the Stanley Cup. This is important. After finally breaking free from salary cap jail this summer, the team made one real move after free agency opened — trading for forward Vladimir Tarasenko, a Russian compatriot for Kaprizov in the locker room, but unlikely to be the difference for a team that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2015.

Kaprizov spent much of his summer in Russia hiking with friends, miles from cell service, decompressing from a trying season that went from being an early Hart Trophy candidate to missing 41 games with a lower body injury. One imagines him finally getting online at some state forestry compound and finding out that Tarasenko — 11 goals and 33 points in 80 games for Detroit last season — was Guerin’s big addition.

“Ты шутишь, что ли?”

The last thing the Wild wanted was for this to become a public negotiation, and Guerin and Leipold maintained relative radio silence Wednesday. At some point soon, that won’t be possible, and as a veteran of the Marian Gaborik Conflict of 2008, well, just know that it will get ugly if it moves into the regular season.

When the Wild went to Grand Forks, N.D., to train for the 2008-09 season, Gaborik’s agent, Ron Salcer, said his client wanted an extension with the Wild, telling reporters at at Ralph Engelstad Arena, “Marian’s made it clear that’s what he wants me to pursue. Our intentions are sincere.”

Were they?

Gaborik, most of you may remember, was the Wild’s best player before Kaprizov and signed with the New York Rangers as soon as he could, a five-year deal worth $7.5 million a year. That was less than the Wild offered him.

“I knew the deal he signed in New York and knew the deal he could have signed to stay in Minnesota — and I know he took a pay cut to be in New York,” Risebrough told the Pioneer Press in 2021.

At some point, Risebrough had to decide whether to trade Gaborik to at least get something back if he left but never really had a chance. Gaborik’s notoriously finicky groin limited him to 17 regular-season games, and he was out of action at the trade deadline.

Now, with Theofanous in town, this space could soon be filled with different news. But if it isn’t, and the Kaprizov contract extension bleeds into the regular season, it will indicate that the Wild’s leading scorer since he arrived in 2020-21 — 185 goals and 366 points in 319 games — is interested in seeing what he can get from a team he deems closer to winning a Cup or will offer him a richer social life, or warmer weather and lower taxes.

In a sport with a salary cap, it’s difficult to believe Kaprizov will get more than the biggest NHL contract in history from any team but the Wild, especially not one paying all the other good players he would be joining — and that seems to indicate he’s willing to accept less somewhere else.

After free agency opened on July 1, Guerin spoke about improving his 2025-26 team through in-season trades. If he can’t lasso Kaprizov soon — and is it really up to him? — he must try trading Kaprizov before his young superstar officially becomes an unrestricted free agent.

The Wild’s best outcome is a long-term deal with Kaprizov. If that doesn’t happen before the trade deadline, Guerin will be forced to avoid the worst-case scenario of just letting the Wild’s best player walk away.

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Anger and grief mixed with tears in a federal courtroom in St. Paul Wednesday during the sentencing hearing of the woman who illegally bought guns for her boyfriend, which he used to fatally ambush three Burnsville first responders.

Ashley Anne Dyrdahl, 37, was sentenced to three years and nine months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release.

Dyrdahl pleaded guilty in January to straw purchasing the two firearms that Shannon Gooden wielded when he killed Officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand and Firefighter/Paramedic Adam Finseth on Feb. 18, 2024.

The maximum federal sentence for straw purchasing is 15 years in prison for each charge, and relatives of the victims asked U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell to impose the longest sentence he could.

Because Dyrdahl didn’t have a previous history of felony criminal activity, the sentencing guidelines recommended a shorter sentence.

In this case, the guidelines were for a prison term of 2½ years to three years and one month, followed by one to three years of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney’s Office asked for a prison term of 3 years and 5 months and Dyrdahl’s attorney requested a term of 1 year and 1 day in prison.

Photos of Burnsville police officers, from left, Paul Elmstrand, Matthew Ruge and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth are displayed during a community vigil Feb. 20, 2024, at the Burnsville Police Department/City Hall. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

Dyrdahl, who has been out of custody since her arrest last year, was handcuffed in the courtroom and U.S. Marshals took her into custody Wednesday afternoon.

When Dyrdahl purchased the two murder weapons in January 2024, weeks before Gooden fired more than 100 rounds at the first responders, she was “fully aware that Gooden was prohibited from possessing firearms,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing about their sentencing recommendation. “Indeed, she purchased the weapons for Gooden because he could not — the law prohibited him from doing so, for good reason.”

Gooden, 38, had a lifetime ban on possessing firearms because of a felony second-degree assault case, which he pleaded guilty to in 2008.

The incident began when Burnsville police were dispatched to a home in the 12600 block of 33rd Avenue South, which Dyrdahl rented, about 2 a.m. Feb. 18, 2024, on a report of possible child sexual abuse, according to the filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office about its sentencing recommendation.

Gooden barricaded himself in a bedroom, “effectively taking the children hostage,” the filing said. There were seven children in the home, ages 5 to 15 — three were Gooden’s from a previous relationship, two were Dyrdahl’s, and two were Gooden’s and Dyrdahl’s together.

“After hours of negotiation, Gooden told law enforcement he would come out peacefully; instead, he opened fire,” the court filing continued.

Ruge and Elmstrand were both 27. Finseth was 40. Gooden also shot and wounded Burnsville police Sgt. Adam Medlicott.

Medlicott said in court on Wednesday that he’d been shot twice, it took seven months for him to be able to sleep through the night and he had to explain to his children what happened. “Yet I’m the lucky one,” he said, adding that he lives with a “terrible burden.”

Ashley Anne Dyrdahl in a 2017 booking photo. (Courtesy of the St. Louis Park Police Department)

Prosecutors wrote of Gooden, who died by suicide: “He was violent and dangerous. Dyrdahl knew all too well Gooden’s penchant for erratic violence. By her own admission, Dyrdahl lived in grave fear of Gooden’s volatile and violent behavior. Over the course of just five months in 2024, the defendant gave this dangerous man at least five firearms. She handed him the means to murder, literally placing these combat weapons in his hands.”

It was up to U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell to decide Dyrdahl’s sentence, and he was not bound by the sentencing guidelines.

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“Never take their first offer,” is advice commonly handed out by skilled and experienced negotiators. For Minnesota Wild superstar forward Kirill Kaprizov and his agent, that tactic apparently was employed even when the offer in question was the biggest proposed contract in NHL history.

According to a report from NHL insider Frank Seravalli published on the social media platform X, Kaprizov was offered an eight-year contract worth $128 million this week, and he turned down the team’s offer. At an average annual value of $16 million, the offer would have made Kaprizov the highest-paid player in NHL history.

“Sources say #mnwild superstar Kirill Kaprizov’s camp turned down an extension offer believed to be 8-years, $128 million in a meeting on Tuesday in Minnesota that would have made him the highest-paid player in #NHL history in both AAV ($16 million) and total dollars.” Seravalli posted on Wednesday morning, right about the time that a few dozen potential future Wild players were taking the ice for a practice at TRIA Rink.

Kaprizov, 28, is heading into his sixth season with the Wild and the final season of a five-year contract that pays him $9 million annually. If not re-signed, he will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2026.

Wild general manager Bill Guerin was not in attendance at the team’s activities on Wednesday and was unavailable for comment on the report. In a message to the Pioneer Press, Wild majority owner Craig Leipold said, “We are not commenting on this story. Sorry.”

Less than a week earlier, meeting with reporters at Grand Casino Arena, Leipold doubled down on his vow that no team would offer Kaprizov more money or years than the Wild. Leipold said that they were prepared to offer the largest contract in NHL history. He also admitted being anxious to sit down with Kaprizov and his representatives face-to-face to work on a deal.

While Wednesday’s news put some Wild fans into a social media frenzy, one former NHL general manager told the Pioneer Press that this is just the opening salvo, and Kaprizov will likely command something closer to $18 million per season in a long-term contract.

Other options for the Wild include offering a shorter-term contract, or exploring trade offers for Kaprizov, who was limited to 41 of the team’s 82 regular season games last year due to injuries. He had 25 goals and 31 assists for 56 points in the regular season, and led the team offensively with five goals and four assists in their six-game opening round playoff series loss to Vegas.

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By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and ALI SWENSON, Associated Press

Charlie Kirk, who rose from a teenage conservative campus activist to a top podcaster, culture warrior and ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed Wednesday during one of his trademark public appearances at a college in Utah. He was 31.

Kirk died doing what made him a potent political force — rallying the right on a college campus, this time Utah Valley University. His shooting is one of an escalating number of attacks on political figures, from the assassination of a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota to last summer’s shooting of Trump, that have roiled the nation.

Trump announced Kirk’s death on his social media site, Truth Social: “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” Trump wrote.

FILE – Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk arrives to speak before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Thomas & Mack Center, Oct. 24, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Kirk personified the pugnacious, populist conservatism that has taken over the Republican Party in the age of Trump. He launched his organization, Turning Point USA, in 2012, targeting younger people and venturing onto liberal-leaning college campuses where many GOP activists were nervous to tread.

A backer of Trump during the president’s initial 2016 run, Kirk took Turning Point from one of a constellation of well-funded conservative groups to the center of the right-of-center universe.

Turning Point’s political wing helped run get-out-the-vote for Trump’s 2024 campaign, trying to energize disaffected conservatives who rarely vote. Trump won Arizona, Turning Point’s home state, by five percentage points after narrowly losing it in 2020. The group is known for its flamboyant events that often feature strobe lighting and pyrotechnics. It claims more than 250,000 student members.

Trump on Wednesday praised Kirk, who started as an unofficial adviser during Trump’s 2016 campaign and more recently became a confidant. “He was a very, very good friend of mine and he was a tremendous person,” Trump told the New York Post.

FILE – Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk speaks before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Kirk showed off an apocalyptic style in his popular podcast, radio show and on the campaign trail. During an appearance with Trump in Georgia last fall, he said that Democrats “stand for everything God hates.” Kirk called the Trump vs. Kamala Harris choice “a spiritual battle.”

“This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way,” Kirk told the 10,000 or so Georgians, who at one point joined Kirk in a deafening chant of “Christ is King! Christ is King!”

Kirk had also remained a regular presence on college campuses. Last year, for the social media program “Surrounded,” he faced off against 20 liberal college students to defend his viewpoints, including that abortion is murder and should be illegal.

Kirk was married to podcaster Erika Frantzve. They have two young children.

Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by a then 18-year-old Kirk and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an immediate success.

But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers.

Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as a personal aide to Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, during the general election campaign.

Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point conferences.

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As money poured in, Kirk bought a $4.75 million Spanish-style estate on a gated Arizona country club. Turning Point steered millions of dollars to contractors owned by Kirk and his associates, and some Republicans were skeptical when it announced it would spearhead an attempt to turn out infrequent voters during Trump’s 2024 campaign.

But as younger voters shifted right in 2024 and Trump ran up a five-point margin of victory in Arizona, Kirk and his allies claimed vindication of his view of a sharp-elbowed, culture-war-oriented conservatism.

Kirk’s evangelical Christian beliefs were intertwined with his political perspective, and he argued that there was no true separation of church and state.

He also referenced the Seven Mountain Mandate, which specifies seven areas where Christians are to lead — politics, religion, media, business, family, education and the arts, and entertainment.

Kirk argued for a new conservatism that advocated for freedom of speech, challenging Big Tech and the media, and centering working-class Americans beyond the nation’s capital.

“We have to ask ourselves a question as a conservative movement: Are we going to revert back to the party of the status quo ruling class?” he said in his speech opening the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2020.

“Or are we going to learn from what I call the MAGA doctrine? The MAGA doctrine, which is a doctrine of American renewal, revival, one that America is the greatest country in the history of the world.”