FILE - In this July 9, 2012, file photo, Minnesota Wild NHL hockey players Ryan Suter, left, and Zach Parise are introduced during a news conference in St. Paul, Minn. After signing with Minnesota together, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter are being bought out together. The Wild announced Tuesday, July 13, 2021, that the team is buying out the final four years of each player's contract, a stunning move early in the NHL offseason. (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

After signing with Minnesota together, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter are being bought out together.

The Wild announced Tuesday that the team is buying out the final four years of each player’s contract, a stunning move early in the NHL offseason. Parise and Suter signed identical $98 million, 13-year contracts on July 4, 2012, and now they’ll go back into free agency together on July 28.

“There were numerous factors that entered into the difficult decision to buy out their contracts,” said general manager Bill Guerin, who took over the job in 2019 after Chuck Fletcher was fired. “But primarily these moves are a continuation of the transformation of our roster aimed at the eventual goal of winning a Stanley Cup.”

Parise and Suter were signed through 2025 at matching salary cap hits of $7.538 million each year. The buyouts save over $10 million next season but extend dead money on the cap through 2029.

The buyouts will combine to cost the Wild almost $15 million against the salary cap in 2023-24 and 2024-25 for Parise and Suter not to play for them.

“I want to thank Zach and Ryan for everything they did for our organization over the past nine seasons, both on and off the ice,” owner Craig Leipold said. “They were tremendous ambassadors for our team and helped us win a lot of games. I wish them nothing but the best going forward.”

Minnesota made the playoffs eight times in nine seasons since signing Parise and Suter but never got past the second round. That includes a loss in the qualifying round of the 2020 bubble playoffs.

Suter and Parise are each 36. Parise turns 37 in late July. They will likely attract interest around the league in free agency, though much shorter term than last time.

The collective bargaining agreement reached months after Suter and Parise signed in Minnesota limited contract lengths to seven years for free agents and eight for players re-upping with their current team.

Suter in his prime with Nashville and Minnesota averaged more than more than half a point a game as one of hockey’s best offensive defensemen. His production dipped to 19 points during the just completed 56-game season, though he still skated more than 22 minutes a night.

Parise, who was coming off a 69-point season in 2011-12 when he captained New Jersey to the Cup Final, was a healthy scratch at times this past season when he put up 18 points in 45 games. He played only four of Minnesota’s seven playoff games, a first-round loss to Vegas.

Blackhawks trade Keith to Oilers for Jones, 3rd-rounder

CHICAGO (AP) — Duncan Keith is heading to the Edmonton Oilers in the latest departure of a cornerstone player from the Chicago Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup core, a move that could help the club speed up a long-term rebuild.

Chicago traded Keith, a two-time Norris Trophy winner, to Edmonton on Monday along with minor league forward Tim Soderlund for young defenseman Caleb Jones and a conditional 2022 third-round draft pick.

Keith asked the Blackhawks for a trade to Western Canada to be closer to his 8-year-old son, Colton, after they spent long stretches apart last season.

“I knew I didn’t want to go those long periods of time without seeing him,” Keith said on a video conference call. “That was a huge thing for me, and I just felt like the Edmonton Oilers — right now it was a good fit, a great fit and I’m excited to start this new chapter of my career.”

No salary was retained in the first blockbuster trade of the NHL offseason since the Stanley Cup Final ended last week. Keith has two years left on his contract at a salary-cap hit just over $5.5 million. He turns 38 on Friday.

“You can retain up to 50%. If we were getting Duncan Keith at $2.75 (million), the price would’ve been a lot higher than it was today,” Oilers general manager Ken Holland said. “If we wanted to lower salary, we would have to put more assets with our offer.”

The 2022 pick becomes a second-rounder if Edmonton reaches next year’s Stanley Cup Final and Keith is among the top four Oilers defensemen in total ice time through three rounds. Asked what he had left in the tank, Keith said: “I feel like I have a lot. … We’ll see what happens when we get on the ice.”

Chicago general manager Stan Bowman said in a release announcing the deal that Keith “will go down as one of the best and most driven defensemen this game has ever seen.”

Keith is the latest member of Chicago’s three-time Cup-winning core to depart while the embattled Blackhawks attempt to rebuild their roster amid an investigation into sexual assault allegations from their 2010 championship run.

Kraken on track for home arena to be ready by mid-October

SEATTLE (AP) — Seats have been bolted into position throughout the upper deck and into the lower bowl. All the concrete has been poured and on the floor of Climate Pledge Arena, the outline of the rink is waiting to be covered in ice.

Builders say the home for the newest NHL franchise, the Seattle Kraken, remains on schedule to be ready by the middle of October, when the NHL season is expected to begin.

It’s not a mad rush, but it is a compressed schedule to get most of the work done to have the building ready for the Kraken to begin about three months from now. It’s expected there will be a week of festivities including musical acts surrounding the first Kraken home game, but indications are Seattle will begin its first NHL season on the road. The league schedule is expected later this month or early August.

Seattle announced last week that its home preseason games will be played at three different locations around Washington state in venues used by teams in the Western Hockey League. While it’s great outreach for the first-year franchise, it’s also necessary as Johnsen said the arena will likely be undergoing systems testing around the time of the first preseason game on Sept. 26.