Article: Bill Guerin Has Burned the Ships

[Gavan]

You have to pay guys to remain on board during a tank. It's the NHL way. Almost all Cup winners in last 10 years had a top 5, pick in the year or two prior to success. It's the formula, and Guerin is doing it w a 15m handicap. They have two Calder contenders and Dumba was their highest pick since Gaborik.

It's crazy good how well Guerin has done. Walleye will contend for preeminence in a couple years. Drafting a NHL ready player, and have the Russians and Ogren and The WHL scoring leader, and solid young D corp makes this team a juggernaut in years to come. This is a tank that hopefully gives fans enough to cheer about. And my bet is the Wild draft higher than their odds would suggest. That's the way the NHL works. 

In addition, valuable players with reasonable NHL salary, w term, make them a better trade asset, not worse. Wild have a stronger bargaining position earlier in the FA market. 

[Quebec1648]

After yet another embarrassing loss, the Wild season is likely over, even though the 2nd half of the season features a softer schedule. The Wild might as well tank at this point, and take the high draft pick. 

I would draft the 6'3 Swedish center Lindstrom, 6'7 Russian defenseman or the 6'3 defenseman Dickinson. Any player that combines both size and skill is worth a shot. A true #1 center, a legit #1 defenseman or a top shelf scorer are the areas of need in my opinion. 

[Davey D]

This is a GREAT article!  Love the Spanish Conquistador analogy!  I will say, however, that you would NOT get much in trade for Zuccarello, Foligno or Hartman.  BG signed these guys because they are fairly CHEAP yet productive players.  Billy G has some real trade assets that would move the needle.  Moving Jonas Brodin, for example, would give the Wild a draft pick and some spending money.  Awesome defenseman but, the Wild have Brock Faber in the fold and Dakota Mermis playing well.  I think it is time to move on from Jonas Brodin.  Next up...Marco Rossi.  Are we that in love with Marco Rossi and his overall game?  Great season so for, but, do we see the consistency needed to make him a top tier center.  You could make the same argument with Matt Boldy.  Personally, I think Zuccarello would waive his no-trade to play with a championship team.  Anywho...this is my opinion.  I think this team needs a major face-lift to with the Stanley Cup.

[Pewterschmidt]

19 hours ago, FredJohnson said:

Same for me. Would it have killed us (Wild Org) if the contracts (Foligno, NoJo, Hatzy and Hobbit) had been done after this season?

No.  For me this is day 1 of GM school.  My guess is BG thought the core would go full cumbaya, instead it went full bruised pear shape

[Pewterschmidt]

1 hour ago, Davey D said:

This is a GREAT article!  Love the Spanish Conquistador analogy!  I will say, however, that you would NOT get much in trade for Zuccarello, Foligno or Hartman.  BG signed these guys because they are fairly CHEAP yet productive players.  Billy G has some real trade assets that would move the needle.  Moving Jonas Brodin, for example, would give the Wild a draft pick and some spending money.  Awesome defenseman but, the Wild have Brock Faber in the fold and Dakota Mermis playing well.  I think it is time to move on from Jonas Brodin.  Next up...Marco Rossi.  Are we that in love with Marco Rossi and his overall game?  Great season so for, but, do we see the consistency needed to make him a top tier center.  You could make the same argument with Matt Boldy.  Personally, I think Zuccarello would waive his no-trade to play with a championship team.  Anywho...this is my opinion.  I think this team needs a major face-lift to with the Stanley Cup.

Hot take from double D’s.  I hadn’t considered moving Brodin, but he may have considerable trade value.  I think Rossi and Boldy are part of next core group so they stay. Mixed emotions on moving brodin

[cloddish]

On 1/11/2024 at 5:51 PM, Outskated said:

The real issue with Guerin and why he does what he does is his boss.  Craig Leipold does not want to commit to losing because it will cost him millions in lost gate revenues, TV revenue, and corporate sponsorships.

 

Bingo! The Wild have always been a franchise that prides itself on--no, not winning, but asses in the seats. Being just good enough to make the playoffs, generate enough interest on a season-to-season basis. The Xcel Energy Center consistently sells out and that has been a major point of pride for the front office in recent years. Obviously this status quo must be maintained for reasons you stated so eloquently. I fearfully and I regretfully began to realize this year particularly, that that narrative is so very obviously apparent with the front office decisions. That coupled with Guerin's questionable behavior behind the scenes, makes you really wonder what this franchise is really comprised of. Frankly, it is pathetic.

Edited January 15 by cloddish
formatting

[B1GKappa97]

12 hours ago, cloddish said:

 Obviously this status quo must be maintained for reasons you stated so eloquently. I fearfully and I regretfully began to realize this year particularly, that that narrative is so very obviously apparent with the front office decisions. 

I think it had more to do with the fact that they don't really have anyone in the AHL who's ready to come up and outplay Zuccy/Hartman/Foligno in the next season or two. 

Beckman isn't the studly goal-scorer fans had hoped for, Walker has speed and that's about it. These guys seem to have hit their ceilings down in the AHL based on their lack of production up here. Lambos and Hunt are probably just 3rd pairing guys at this point of their careers. 

Who's to say Oghren, who was projected as a middle-6er at best, is ready for the NHL in just one year? Or that Khusnutdinov will be as effective in the NHL as the KHL?

Yurov is probably a good bet to slot into the top-6 quickly, but he's about the only one and who knows whether he'll even come to the USA next season.

[raithis]

On 1/11/2024 at 4:20 PM, MrCheatachu said:

You've spent the majority of the money to play with in FA ($3.5M Fleury, $2 Goose) on extending Moose/Hartsy, and still have to figure out what you want to do with the Deweys and Mermis.

Not exactly.  Most people would call a majority more than half.

Foligno's salary will increase a bit.

Hartman's salary goes up a bit more.

Zuccarello's salary drops a bit, easily covering Foligno's increase and part of Hartman's.  Goligoski's then covers the rest.

We would still have almost all Fleury's salary to work with, so the majority of it is not spent.

Edited January 15 by raithis
Misspelling

[mnfaninnc]

On 1/14/2024 at 3:40 PM, Davey D said:

Moving Jonas Brodin, for example, would give the Wild a draft pick and some spending money.  Awesome defenseman but, the Wild have Brock Faber in the fold and Dakota Mermis playing well.  I think it is time to move on from Jonas Brodin.  Next up...Marco Rossi.  Are we that in love with Marco Rossi and his overall game?  Great season so for, but, do we see the consistency needed to make him a top tier center.  You could make the same argument with Matt Boldy.  Personally, I think Zuccarello would waive his no-trade to play with a championship team.  Anywho...this is my opinion.  I think this team needs a major face-lift to with the Stanley Cup.

I'd have to vote against moving Brodin + NMC. I think he's got plenty of good years left in him. He'd bring an asset, but we'd probably have to retain salary. I'd be more apt to try and move Spurgeon.

Marco Rossi-yes. He's a rookie this year and if he has an offseason where he can put on another 10 lbs. of muscle, I think he could be that guy. Boldy, IMO needs to do the same and get that right shoulder strengthened. 

Moving Zuccarello will be completely on Zuccarello's terms. I'd do it if he'd wave his clause. 

Face lift is exactly what I've been asking for, but I think that's more than for players. I'd like to see a jersey reboot where we use our reverse retros as the main jerseys and come up with another 3rd jersey. This is a visible reminder that this is not your same old Wild. The same thing needs to happen around other parts of the organization, both visual and audio. 

I agree some new player blood is in order, but control what can be controlled at this point, and get some other stuff done. This is not an endorsement of a huge X renovation either. This is a work with what you can do thing. 

In reality, and this is not what people normally think of but it has been pointed out several times here: We are down $15m in cap and have had numerous penalties over the last few years. This is monopoly money. Real money is that we are paying peanuts for the buyouts, and OCL is pocketing a lot of that real money. It's time for him to invest a bit more in his team. I'm not saying he needs to pay for big renovations, but, he can pay for getting the new jerseys done, and getting some new visual and audio in the building, and maybe some upgrades in Des Moines, especially in the weight training area.

[mnfaninnc]

20 hours ago, cloddish said:

The Wild have always been a franchise that prides itself on--no, not winning, but asses in the seats. Being just good enough to make the playoffs, generate enough interest on a season-to-season basis.

For this message to change, #1 must be unretired. Is the source of pride to lead the league in attendance? I would suggest better attendance would be gained if the team was a legit cup contender! Of course, we don't have that much more space

[mnfaninnc]

2 hours ago, raithis said:

We would still have almost all Fleury's salary to work with, so the majority of it is not spent.

Does this include the cap going up?

[raithis]

20 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

Does this include the cap going up?

Nope.  We would have that too.  We would also have whoever we don't re-sign out of Duhaime, Dewar, Maroon, Bogosian, and Mermis.  Granted, none of those are sizable deals.  I certainly wouldn't keep all of them, especially if prospects show they can take some of those spots.

What it does mean is that we could potentially have about $6M-ish to work with if we fill those spots above with comparably salaried players.  If we want to keep someone like Dewar and he wants a small raise to re-sign, then the amount it increases comes out of that.

If a prospect or two not named Hunt or Wallstedt (may be premature, but I'm pencilling them in assuming they can and will earn spots that are being vacated) is ready to make the roster and we keep like half of those players or replace them with comparably salaried equivalents, we could take a swing at a pretty decent FA AND have NHL-caliber backups as healthy scratches on the roster.  We could afford to sit a player who is a little banged up and bring in a Gaudreau or a Mermis or a Merrill off the bench before the hurt player ends up missing weeks.  Hynes is a big Xs and Os guy.  Imagine if he had the flexibility to really utilize that strength with a few extra players to plug in as he saw.

It also means that players like Yurov really do have room on the roster if they are better than someone else.  I'd have no problem playing Yurov and sitting someone like Johansson or Gaudreau if he was outplaying them.  There are 4 lines and a bench, and the amount of a player's salary doesn't guarantee where they will be.  Play on the ice does.

[bean5302]

Projected points based on month

Oct = 73pts (-3), 73pts season rate
Nov = 41pts (-7), 55pts season rate
Dec = 105pts (+8) , 75pts season rate
Jan = 82pts (-15), 76pts season rate

The Wild put themselves into an impossible situation by playing absolutely terrible hockey in November. Nobody in this forum thought there was any hope of the Wild making the playoffs by the end of November.

Guerin fired Evason and the team breathed new life and from the firing on, the team has scored 28pts in 23 games or a 100pt season pace. If the Wild continue playing at that pace, they'll finish the season with 90pts, right on the fence, but probably out of the playoffs. All it takes is a 5 game winning streak or something like that and suddenly everything looks a lot more rosy.

The only reason we see articles like this one is the Wild clawed their way back into potentially making the playoffs and now everybody is angry the bandwagon has a broken spoke. 

Guerin has done a masterful job. Period. End. Stop. Guerin inherited an absolute catastrophe. Truly. Every aspect of the Wild was a mess. The locker room was totally dysfunctional. The best player in franchise history was in the twilight of his career and about to hang up his skates. 2 of what would soon become some of the worst contracts in hockey were hamstringing the franchise, and the team had missed the playoffs. The team was old, slow, and it lacked younger talent. Granlund and Coyle were the "superstar" hope for the franchise... Then, 2020 hit. The cap situation got even worse, and it was clear the already bad Parise and Suter contracts were now entering into the phase of utterly crippling. Guerin made the best of a horrible situation, ripped the bandage off and ditched Parise and Suter, allowing the team to build and keep the most talented player in team history, Kirill Kaprisov. The kind of franchise player who could help carry a good team to the Stanley Cup. Does anybody think Kaprisov sticks with the Wild if they looked like they were going to be non-competitive?

I don't agree with everything Guerin does, but he's been dealt a horrible hand, and I would not have been interested in watching the Wild tank for what would have been 5+ years once he took over.

[FredJohnson]

On 1/14/2024 at 5:14 PM, Pewterschmidt said:

it went full bruised pear shape

I prefer an apple bottom shape. (Know what I mean?!)

[FredJohnson]

On 1/16/2024 at 4:27 PM, bean5302 said:

Projected points based on month

Tl;dr

[Pewterschmidt]

2 minutes ago, FredJohnson said:

I prefer an apple bottom shape. (Know what I mean?!)

I think you'll be a fan of the new Wild Buttock coaches.

[FredJohnson]

4 minutes ago, Pewterschmidt said:

I think you'll be a fan of the new Wild Buttock coaches.

😂😂😂

[bean5302]

On 1/17/2024 at 5:28 PM, FredJohnson said:

Tl;dr

Let me stupid it down for you.

Wild play poor October.
Wild play more badder November.
Wild play way, way more gooder December.
Wild play not as gooder January.

Wild outlook still gooder now than at end of November.
Wild not out of playoffs yet.

Short bus enough for you?

[FredJohnson]

9 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Short bus enough for you?