Darcy Kuemper playing his KHL card in talks with Wild

As far as leverage goes, Minnesota Wild restricted free agent goalie Darcy Kuemper lacks it.

GM Chuck Fletcher owns his rights, and already has two NHL goalies under contract for next season in Niklas Backstrom and Josh Harding, with Ilya Bryzgalov still out there in UFA land.

Obviously, he’d like Kuemper under contract, considering how good the young goalie is and the health questions that dog his current netminders. But it’s not going to be at Kuemper’s asking price, which is a one-way contract rather than a two-way deal.

So Kuemper is doing what anyone in his situation seems to do when negotiating an RFA contract with little leverage: Making noise about playing in Russia.

According to Bob McKenzie, Kuemper is looking at his KHL options for next season, which would involve a contract with an NHL out clause. His agent is Jeff Helperl.

Fletcher said earlier this summer that he understands where Kuemper is within in the context of his NHL career, and that timing on the contract isn’t an issue:

“Darcy certainly has great potential and played very well in stretches for us this season, but at the end of the day I think he’s played around 30 games in the NHL. Usually this isn’t the time to fight for the big contract. We feel Darcy right now is trying to establish himself in the league and once he does that it’ll be a little simpler to come up with terms.

"Our focus right now is just on getting good deals with both of them. If we can get the right deal for the player and for the team, then it’ll give us a chance to be competitive. If we spend too much money on players before they’re ready to get the money they feel they deserve it impacts a lot of other things down the road. If we can get a deal done tomorrow, great, if it takes even into training camp, it’s really not a big deal.”

In fairness, Kuemper’s situation is a bit different than other KHL shackle-rattlers like Torey Krug. He’s third-man on the totem pole, needing to either dramatically outplay Backstrom or Harding in the preseason or hope one of them can’t answer the bell at some point this season. If he doesn’t want to be in Iowa and wants to make some bank for a year, the KHL could be a sensible option.

But that doesn’t mean this isn’t anything more than another RFA with no leverage desperately trying to find some with an overseas contract offer.