Wild’s Brock Faber could get richest extension in team history this offseason:

This is how you know Bill Guerin is not only planning to sign Brock Faber to a long-term extension this offseason but also anticipating paying him on par with other young defensemen who have gotten monster second contracts over the past few years.

The Minnesota Wild president of hockey operations and general manager wants Faber to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie.

Let’s be honest: Faber’s winning the Calder wouldn’t exactly help Guerin’s negotiating leverage when the 21-year-old is eligible for a contract extension July 1. But Guerin sees just how special a talent Faber is and knows he’s going to have to ante up to sign him for the maximum eight years starting in 2025-26.

Acquired in the Kevin Fiala deal with the Los Angeles Kings in summer 2022, Faber can skate forever, is evolving offensively faster than anybody could have envisioned and can eat major minutes, which kept the Wild afloat this season amid captain Jared Spurgeon’s playing only 16 times.

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If you know Faber, you know he’s not thinking about the giant payday on the horizon.

But his agents, of course, are.

“Brock’s just playing and trying to do what he can to help the team get back into the playoffs, so we have not had any conversations about it at all,” said Brian Bartlett, who along with his brother, Scott, represents Faber. “But we’ll be happy to hear from the Wild this summer, and we expect that we will. It’s definitely the trend with these elite, elite young defensemen that they seem to be getting locked up when they can just because they’re so hard to find, and the prices certainly are not coming down year over year.”

Bartlett knows firsthand, representing Cale Makar, whom many consider the best defenseman in the game. At age 22, Makar agreed to a second contract with the Colorado Avalanche to the tune of six years, $54 million ($9 million average annual value) in 2021.

And that’s a number Faber can realistically push for. There are other examples of young defensemen in that range beyond Makar, from Aaron Ekblad and Quinn Hughes in the high $7 million range to Adam Fox and Zach Werenski around $9.5 million.

Faber profiles more toward being a shutdown defenseman — though his offense has been trending up, especially since getting power-play opportunity starting in December — but shutdown defensemen are also getting paid.

Charlie McAvoy, a player many NHL folks compare Faber to, is a prime example, and he signed an eight-year contract carrying a $9.5 million cap hit a year before hitting restricted free agency (after a bridge deal). All-around defender Miro Heiskanen signed for eight years at $8.45 million per.

Here’s a look at those comparable contracts and others, with the cap hits and percentage of the total cap (CH%) those numbers were at in their initial seasons.

With the cap on the rise — to a projected $87.7 million…