Article: The Kevin Fiala Trade Was Start of Dean Evason's Downfall

[MNCountryLife]

Top tier true goal scorers are hard to find.  Fiala was/is one.  You find ways to keep those types of guys. Especially one as young as he was.  Dumba is another player you find a way to keep.  He energized the ice and his positives outweighed his eye gouging once a game mistake.  We kept neither.  Ouch.  I would gladly of dropped Freddy, Johansson, Hartman, Zuc and even taken a shorter contract with Boldy to make room for Fiala.  You simply do not let snipers walk out the door.  That was a mistake by BG.  

It would likely have forced several of our A players to move up... that isn't a bad thing... especially considering the alternative that led us to this point.

Edited November 30, 2023 by MNCountryLife

[M_Nels]

13 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

Dumba is another player you find a way to keep.  He energized the ice and his positives outweighed his eye gouging once a game mistake.

Dumba's been healthy scratched 2x by Arizona already IIRC. Have seen that he's struggled so far. Dumba's best years were well behind him when he was here. Liked the guy was still a serviceable player and a great leader but he benefitted tremendously from being paired with Brods.

[raithis]

22 hours ago, MrCheatachu said:

He could have absolutely fit Fifi's $7.8M if he didnt sign Goose ($2M), MAF ($3.5), MoJo ($2M) and/or Freddy ($2.1M)

Assuming Fiala even wanted to re-sign here (and that's a big IF), I don't see how this is done.

I'm not defending any of these 4, but say all weren't here and we signed Fiala for $7.8M, how do you fill 3 roster spots with the $1.8M that's left over.  Even league minimum doesn't give you 3 players.

You've have to trade out more players for players on lower contracts in an off-season were half the teams we're trying to stay under the cap and you'd have almost half the team on league minimum deals just to keep Fiala here, probably sacrificing any chance at having a competitive team in the meantime, which likely makes us even less attractive to re-signing Fiala.

None of this makes sense.

It wasn't that Guerin chose Goligoski, Johansson, Fleury, and Gaudreau over Fiala.  It's that he chose to pay Boldy over Fiala.  With the cap penalties, you can't have too many contracts over $5M before you end up having a team with poor balance.

Of course, it can be said that some of the players that were chosen might not be the right ones, but that doesn't mean we would be better off with a bunch of league minimum players when none of our AHL players are really ready...and no, I wouldn't bring Wallstedt up before next year.

 

[M_Nels]

The guy I really miss that I wish we could've re-signed is Nyquist. 

[MrCheatachu]

31 minutes ago, raithis said:

Assuming Fiala even wanted to re-sign here (and that's a big IF), I don't see how this is done.

I'm not defending any of these 4, but say all weren't here and we signed Fiala for $7.8M, how do you fill 3 roster spots with the $1.8M that's left over.  Even league minimum doesn't give you 3 players.

If you carry a roster of 20 players, you have 1.8M left to sign a backup goalie...(2 goalies, 6 defense, 12 forwards) and then if you get injuries you have to either skate short a game to get the emergency callup, or move to LTIR asap.  

James Reimer, Alex Nedeljkovic or Laurent Brossoit are all goalies who were FA's over the summer who signed < $1.8M.  That budget should be plenty to get you a serviceable backup tender.

OR $900k to sign a goalie and then use waivers exempt players to go back and forth on a 7th D or 13th F.

Quote

Of course, it can be said that some of the players that were chosen might not be the right ones, but that doesn't mean we would be better off with a bunch of league minimum players when none of our AHL players are really ready...and no, I wouldn't bring Wallstedt up before next year.

Maybe, maybe not.  But Fiala has stretched his 'couple of good months' to back to back point-per-game production.  It's a helluva lot easier to find 'high energy, gritty guys' than it is to find 27 year old point-per-game wingers.

[MNCountryLife]

2 hours ago, M_Nels said:

Dumba's best years were well behind him

I would disagree with that statement. Some players need a certain type of team to fit.  AZ may not be that for Dumba but he did fit in MN.  He was very dependable and a definite spark plug for us.  Were we a better team with Dumba?  Absolutely!  Does he have the same value as Brodin, Spurgeon, Ek and Kirill?  Absolutely NOT.  But we could have gotten him for $3M and I would have picked him over a few others signed this summer.  My only reason for mentioning him was because IMO it was mistake for BG to let him go .. .similar to Fiala.... but not the same magnitude.

[MNCountryLife]

2 hours ago, M_Nels said:

The guy I really miss that I wish we could've re-signed is Nyquist. 

I liked him as well.  I thought he was our best player last year in the playoffs.

[MNCountryLife]

2 hours ago, raithis said:

It's that he chose to pay Boldy over Fiala.

and that right there speaks volumes as to what BG is thinking.  He let a guy go that would have kept us competitive now vs holding on to a guy with a front loaded contract that should be really good dividends on the back side.  It is why I think BG is not really expecting to win right now.  He is setting everything up for after the Dead cap expires.  If that isn't his plan then he isn't thinking.

If you were trying to win now there are a lot of things I would have done different.

[Will D. Ness]

Talking about bad BG moves... I'm surprised nobody has brought up Fleury.  This has to be the worst.

Also Boldy>Fiala long term IMO.  I know he is struggling right now and needs a better wingman but I think worst case is a better version of Coyle and best case top 10 player in the league.

[mnfaninnc]

On 11/29/2023 at 2:54 PM, MacGyver said:

I think there was a period of time early on if BG had wanted to keep Fiala and his 83 points he may have found a way and Fiala may have been willing to negotiate. But the situation became untenable and Fiala just had to get out from underneath a toxic cloud. 

This is where we differ. I think BG knew from the 1 year contract that he signed Fiala to that Fiala had no intentions of signing longterm here. It wasn't the team, it was the climate and he and his model girlfriend/wife had visions of good weather for his next contract. 

I think BG was aware of this, as he was able to trade McBain, and got Firstov to Russia (which may have been Firstov's request). 

Now, how could this be the downfall of Evason? Tony doesn't point this out, but when he introduced the positionless hockey, he had Fiala who was also a threat. Last season without Fiala, Evason's positionless system couldn't work. And since we know Evason is not the most flexible guy out there, he didn't really have much of a plan B. Having Fiala was really important to the scheme. 

We knew we were tight against the cap, but we did have a little flexibility. We could have signed Fiala longterm if he was willing (which is really my main basis for believing that he wasn't). Boldy wouldn't have his big extension, though, he'd be on a bridge deal through next season. None of the 3 resigns this training camp would have been done. I think we'd be relying on more kids. 

I'm not unhappy with Faber+Ohgren either. I wanted a C from LA too, but when Guerin ripped Fiala on KFAN, I think the deal was pretty much complete already, and LA's prospects were heavily scouted all year round. Thankfully, Guerin found a GM who was willing to work with him as this and Anaheim were really the only teams that could make the move. FL and TB were too deep in cap trouble and we'd have had to take back a bad contract (but might have gotten Lundell).

So, I believe Tony's conclusion has some genuine merit.

What's next for Evason? Keep an eye on Columbus. Vincent looks like he's in over his head, and I could see Evason stepping in and succeeding there.

[Dango]

I think we should try and get Nylander from the leafs somehow  that would fill Fialas spot but no idea what $$ ers  hes looking for if its possible 

[mnfaninnc]

On 11/29/2023 at 6:10 PM, Dean said:

 Bill on radio said this team isn’t rebuilding. That they’ve drafted enough the past few years to make a contender.  IMO the probability’s are against him but who knows maybe Judd gets lucky an hits on a bunch. IMO if half the prospects make nhl he did good. Whether they will be any good is a long way off to say. Hard to call yourself a contender with most guys not even in ahl yet  and a roster 2 points from last . 

He just can't use the "rebuilding" word. I wonder if he can use renovating? But the reason I highlighted this was when you said if half the draft picks make the NHL. If half the draft picks make the NHL, Judd was outstanding and needs his own parade!

What if we find out that this seasoning, or marinating actually works? I'd love to have that cavalry of defenders up here in a couple of years. Having the 3 guys come in from Europe and play would be awesome!

[mnfaninnc]

10 hours ago, FredJohnson said:

This was THE reason. Fifi would still be here if we had the cap space at that time.

This is what we think if Fiala wanted to stay. I just don't think he wanted to and was putting in his 6 seasons before he could choose where he wanted to be. Fiala, I am convinced, wanted to be a King. I also think he signed a team friendly deal to be one.

[FredJohnson]

2 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

This is what we think if Fiala wanted to stay. I just don't think he wanted to and was putting in his 6 seasons before he could choose where he wanted to be. Fiala, I am convinced, wanted to be a King. I also think he signed a team friendly deal to be one.

That's quite possible. But I haven't ever seen a quote from Fifi that made me think he wanted 'out of here'. So when people say the Wild screwed up by not resigning him, they're ignoring the facts: the roster would have had to gotten worse to afford the contract he signed with LA. 

[LittleBallofHate]

Hello! now I can join the conversation.

Rewinding quite a bit here for the tricky GM-stuff, I think there are some angles that get overlooked.

Talbot for example: that agent trying to dictate to Shooter/GMBG to [pay him now, or you are going to have problems] & this is right after Kaprizov's agent had the Wild held hostage. Feels like the GM set a precedent to say "no more" to agents overstepping their bounds, I personally love to have a fiery GM, we need more ballsy GMs in MN - not less.

FiFi McDreamyDimpleChin is a heck of a player though. I'm less inclined to think that mass-turnover at other positions (to make $$ work) to keep a single star-caliber winger is a good idea. Trickling low $ prospects in is what we should be doing, but an exodus for a winger would likely backfire

[mnfaninnc]

12 hours ago, FredJohnson said:

That's quite possible. But I haven't ever seen a quote from Fifi that made me think he wanted 'out of here'.

Did McBain say he wanted out of here? Did any of the unsigned draft picks last year? That stuff stays in the cone of silence with Guerin. If you're using Talbot as an example, he has come out and said he never wanted to leave. It was his idiot agent that felt like he could make a name for himself by going public. Guerin hates...HATES....private conversations going public. He called out Davidson in Chicago when he leaked the Wild being interested in Fleury. 

You could say that Faber was in our backyard and that's why we got him. But, I'm pretty sure we scouted heavily all of their prospects and concluded that Faber was the guy. We didn't even get the "rostered" player in the trade, probably because we couldn't afford him. I think at the arbitration hearing, Fiala or his agent let it be known he wasn't resigning longterm. And, at the time, a longterm deal for Fiala could have been less that $7.8m. It was before he blew up. 

[FredJohnson]

4 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

That stuff stays in the cone of silence with Guerin.

That's why I stick to the facts at hand: we couldn't afford to keep Fifi. Period.

[raithis]

On 11/30/2023 at 1:43 PM, MrCheatachu said:

If you carry a roster of 20 players, you have 1.8M left to sign a backup goalie...(2 goalies, 6 defense, 12 forwards) and then if you get injuries you have to either skate short a game to get the emergency callup, or move to LTIR asap.  

James Reimer, Alex Nedeljkovic or Laurent Brossoit are all goalies who were FA's over the summer who signed < $1.8M.  That budget should be plenty to get you a serviceable backup tender.

OR $900k to sign a goalie and then use waivers exempt players to go back and forth on a 7th D or 13th F.

Maybe, maybe not.  But Fiala has stretched his 'couple of good months' to back to back point-per-game production.  It's a helluva lot easier to find 'high energy, gritty guys' than it is to find 27 year old point-per-game wingers.

That's IF you can carry a roster of 20.  You are talking about not signing 4 players so you can sign one player, and we struggle right now to bring up anyone from the AHL unless someone is hurt.  We wouldn't even have a full roster of 20 without more changes than that and then we'd start looking more like Edmonton - a front-loaded team that's easy to game-plan against.

I'm not saying it would have been nice to keep Fiala, but I feel like he wanted out and the cap penalties from the buyout made it really hard to do so.  Keeping him here might have actually cost us more than $7.8M.  Just because players sign elsewhere for x amount doesn't mean they want to sign here for that much.  We aren't a cup contender.  We are (sort of) in a rebuild.  It's not a full tear-in-down-to-the-baseboards kind of rebuild and I wouldn't call it a re-tool, but it is a kind of rebuild to get us back with a solid foundation that probably starts coming into fruition about 2yrs from now based on the current trajectory.  Tearing more of the team down to keep Fiala would have likely delayed that another year.

[raithis]

On 11/30/2023 at 3:49 PM, MNCountryLife said:

and that right there speaks volumes as to what BG is thinking.  He let a guy go that would have kept us competitive now vs holding on to a guy with a front loaded contract that should be really good dividends on the back side.  It is why I think BG is not really expecting to win right now.  He is setting everything up for after the Dead cap expires.  If that isn't his plan then he isn't thinking.

If you were trying to win now there are a lot of things I would have done different.

Exactly.

[raithis]

On 12/1/2023 at 9:49 AM, mnfaninnc said:

Did McBain say he wanted out of here? 

Yes, there were reports that McBain had no intention of signing.  Reasoning was supposedly that he saw the depth and didn't want to compete or wait for a spot, believing he was NHL ready.  How much truth was in that, I've no idea, but if that is accurate, I honestly have no problem with trading him.

[mnfaninnc]

On 12/1/2023 at 2:58 PM, FredJohnson said:

That's why I stick to the facts at hand: we couldn't afford to keep Fifi. Period.

Except for the facts at hand don't make any logical sense.

[mnfaninnc]

On 11/30/2023 at 10:35 PM, FredJohnson said:

That's quite possible. But I haven't ever seen a quote from Fifi that made me think he wanted 'out of here'. So when people say the Wild screwed up by not resigning him, they're ignoring the facts: the roster would have had to gotten worse to afford the contract he signed with LA. 

If Fiala wanted to sign here longterm, they could have hammered out a deal before the original arbitration hearing. I realize that European players are different in their contract priorities, but it was the Wild who asked for arbitration. This was before his breakout season, so he could have been signed to a longterm deal for less. 

Something doesn't make sense when you spread out all the "facts" on the table. We are missing something, and that is why this speculation makes sense. Why wouldn't we hear of it? Because that kind of stuff stays in Guerin's vault, and it does nobody any good for it to get out. 

Tell me something though. If you had a really hot girlfriend who was a model and you intended to marry her, would you rather play in MN or would you rather play in LA where you could be around her more? 

[FredJohnson]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

Except for the facts at hand don't make any logical sense.

Um...what?

[mnfaninnc]

On 12/5/2023 at 12:04 PM, FredJohnson said:

Um...what?

The facts that have been presented to us do not make logical sense. It doesn't make sense for Guerin to say Dumba is a hell of a player and he's not trading him for a wing who had half a season hot streak. It doesn't make sense to jettison Fiala off the club because you'd have to reshuffle 3 or 4 other guys. It doesn't make sense that you could have bridged Boldy instead of signing him longterm. Boldy made Fiala better and Fiala made Boldy better. Stick Ek in the middle of that and you've got 2 excellent scoring lines. It also doesn't make sense that the Wild had to take Fiala to arbitration when it's usually the other way around, and doesn't make sense that Guerin didn't want to sign him longterm. 

What does make sense is that Fiala had no intension of signing longterm here. It makes sense from a transaction perspective and a personal perspective for Fiala. Fiala didn't ask to be traded, he was fine filling out his time here. I think he liked our team, and playing with Kaprizov on the team. However, European players have a different value of money and other things. It only makes sense when you consider that Fiala wanted to be somewhere else. He made himself a lot of money with that hot streak. Guerin traded Fiala to LA and got him there a year earlier than they could have had him. That's really the only thing that actually makes sense. 

And with private conversations, something that Guerin specifically keeps in his vault that doesn't get out, there was no need to voice this publicly. Fiala could have been very frank with Shooter, and Shooter probably appreciated the hot streak because it got him just a little more from LA (like Faber instead of another prospect). It also really makes sense that a handshake deal was in place prior to the actual deal, and that the Wild had ample time to fully scout the Kings prospects. Kings knew the Wild were in a cap bind and a rostered player wasn't exactly what they needed. And, this is how GMs build rapport with each other and have relationships. I would not be surprised if the Wild and Kings do business again in Guerin's era. This deal may have cost Evason his job, but the reality is, it was a win-win deal so far.

[Up North Guy]

2 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

The facts that have been presented to us do not make logical sense. It doesn't make sense for Guerin to say Dumba is a hell of a player and he's not trading him for a wing who had half a season hot streak. It doesn't make sense to jettison Fiala off the club because you'd have to reshuffle 3 or 4 other guys. It doesn't make sense that you could have bridged Boldy instead of signing him longterm. Boldy made Fiala better and Fiala made Boldy better. Stick Ek in the middle of that and you've got 2 excellent scoring lines. It also doesn't make sense that the Wild had to take Fiala to arbitration when it's usually the other way around, and doesn't make sense that Guerin didn't want to sign him longterm. 

What does make sense is that Fiala had no intension of signing longterm here. It makes sense from a transaction perspective and a personal perspective for Fiala. Fiala didn't ask to be traded, he was fine filling out his time here. I think he liked our team, and playing with Kaprizov on the team. However, European players have a different value of money and other things. It only makes sense when you consider that Fiala wanted to be somewhere else. He made himself a lot of money with that hot streak. Guerin traded Fiala to LA and got him there a year earlier than they could have had him. That's really the only thing that actually makes sense. 

And with private conversations, something that Guerin specifically keeps in his vault that doesn't get out, there was no need to voice this publicly. Fiala could have been very frank with Shooter, and Shooter probably appreciated the hot streak because it got him just a little more from LA (like Faber instead of another prospect). It also really makes sense that a handshake deal was in place prior to the actual deal, and that the Wild had ample time to fully scout the Kings prospects. Kings knew the Wild were in a cap bind and a rostered player wasn't exactly what they needed. And, this is how GMs build rapport with each other and have relationships. I would not be surprised if the Wild and Kings do business again in Guerin's era. This deal may have cost Evason his job, but the reality is, it was a win-win deal so far.

Without direct knowledge this is the most plausible result.