A few extra fireworks were sent into the sky across the State of Hockey when Zach Parise and Ryan Suter signed matching 13-year contracts worth $98 million each on the 4th of July in 2012. When the news broke that the two biggest free agents available that offseason had BOTH chosen to play for Minnesota, we celebrated and began planning the victory parade, as we all believed that Parise and Suter would surely carry us straight to the Stanley Cup Final. Shame on us.
While that certainly has not happened, I still defend the signings five years later, as they truly did put Minnesota back into legitimacy for the first time in a decade, and have kept us in contention throughout.