Matt Cullen is going home, but that doesn’t mean that he’s retiring from hockey.
Instead, the Minnesota native decided to sign a one-year, $1 million deal with the Minnesota Wild. It’s unclear why, precisely, Cullen didn’t ink a deal to try to “threepeat” with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Wild note that his deal also includes $700K in potential performance bonuses.
This will be the 40-year-old’s second run with the Wild. His first run came from 2010-11 through 2012-13, where he appeared in 193 regular-season games and five postseason contests for Minnesota.
Cullen managed back-to-back 30+ point seasons with the Penguins while providing useful all-around play as a veteran center. If he can maintain a reasonably high level of play, this gives the Wild quite the solid group down the middle, even with Martin Hanzal gone.
Cullen fully expects this will be his last season, although he jokes that he says that every year
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) August 16, 2017