Article: Wild Sign Star Rookie Brock Faber to 8-Year Contract Extension

[FredJohnson]

1 hour ago, Beast said:

The caveat is Brock can’t regress.  He has to be great for this contract to work favorably.  

BE great? He's already great. He'll be a superstar when he gets better.

[TheGoosesAreLooses]

Good job by Billy to get this locked up. I think the value of this contract will be a steal in years to come!

[MacGyver]

2 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

I'd have at least had a conversation with Suter and Parise before just jettisoning them.

This is not how Billy operates. He works from emotion not reason. I think he viewed Parise and Suter as someone who might challenge him and want some level of input on how the team functions and is structured. Only room for one alpha when Billy's around. Kaprizov will never get the control ODC thinks he should have not with Billy at the helm. If Kaprizov ever dared tried flex any control muscle he'd be gone faster than Talbot. 

[mnfaninnc]

3 hours ago, MacGyver said:

Kaprizov will never get the control ODC thinks he should have not with Billy at the helm. If Kaprizov ever dared tried flex any control muscle he'd be gone faster than Talbot. 

I just have to disagree with this take. Talbot didn't even flex his muscles, it was his idiot agent trying to make a name for himself. Talbot never said a word, but his agent was on the floor of the draft trying to gain more clients by acting tough in an interview. Here's the thing about Shooter, he'll have these tough discussions and will deal with flexed muscles in private, in his office. He won't allow it publicly. He doesn't negotiate publicly. He can't stand trading publicly. He expects everything in the player universe to be handled behind closed doors. If someone asks for a trade publicly, they'll be shipped out pronto. That's just the way he does business.

And, I believe each player knows it and almost all agents know it. The agent for Talbot should have been fired by Talbot immediately because this was more about the agent than who he was supposed to be representing.  Later, Talbot spoke about the situation saying he never wanted to leave the Wild. 

I think Shooter would love for Kaprizov to come to him and say he wanted more influence, but to do it privately. Trenin was obviously a Hynes' want, but he also was a friend of Kaprizov who might have vouched for him. Yes Guerin is emotional, but he's not too emotional. He's a tough competitor and miserable to be around when the team is losing. But he does have restraint, for instance, he got no good offers on Rossi and Goose so far, so he did nothing. 

Was trading Addison emotional? Yes, to some extent. But, he immediately had a replacement in mind, Bogosian.  He knew what he wanted to replace him. Was firing Evason emotional? Yes, but he didn't do it when he first needed to, he set up a replacement 1st to make sure they had someone to come right in. Some will look to the equipment guy who flushed his career down the toilet. Yes, Guerin is emotional, yes, he'll yell, but as an employee that guy needed to know when to approach and when to wait.  

One thing I don't think Guerin does very well is multitask.  He doesn't seem to be able to jump from one thing to another while the 1st thing is undone. Perhaps that's just public Guerin and in private he's different? I think he's been the best judge of team chemistry we've had and this will eventually help him out. He's also a pretty good judge of talent.

[Protec]

Fred beat me to it. Billy Idol and Billy Guerin have each had a few pretty good hits.

[1Brotherbill]

People acting like this is the worst contract in the history of the NHL.  Also, acting like this absorbs all the money from the Buyouts.

Minnesota has 21 million to play with next off season even with this contract.  Kiril is more than likely getting extended but even so he is only going to get a 1 or 2 million dollar raise.  They have a lot of flexibility going into next season.  Yes, even with the NMC and NTC contracts.  There are only two contracts that are a problem and that is Gaudreau and Foglino.  Spurgeon might be a problem if he doesn't come back.  But after this year the contract is not as bad.  

So just relax on the contract situaions. 

[B1GKappa97]

14 hours ago, MacGyver said:

This is not how Billy operates. He works from emotion not reason. I think he viewed Parise and Suter as someone who might challenge him and want some level of input on how the team functions and is structured. Only room for one alpha when Billy's around. Kaprizov will never get the control ODC thinks he should have not with Billy at the helm. If Kaprizov ever dared tried flex any control muscle he'd be gone faster than Talbot. 

Umm so you don't think that Kaprizov had anything to do with Zuccarello getting an extension? 'kay then. 

This is a whole lot of conjecture on your part and clearly biased at that. Talbot didn't try to flex control, he had his wife bitch about the HC via social media and his agent bitch about the GM, also through the media. All because he couldn't handle competition with MAF. He clearly wanted out and he got it. 

[B1GKappa97]

9 hours ago, 1Brotherbill said:

People acting like this is the worst contract in the history of the NHL.  Also, acting like this absorbs all the money from the Buyouts.

It absorbs a lot of it. It's, what, $13-some million we'll get back in cap-space next year? Faber will take up $8.5M of that. Kaprizov will likely get another $3M or so, possibly more, the season after. They may have to make him the highest paid player to keep him around. (McDavid has the highest cap-hit at $12.6M currently, a $3.6M raise on Kaprizov's AAV.)

So it'll give us about $4M in extra space next year before its gone. 

That said if a guy like Yurov and Wallstedt come in and delivers on their hype, and Rossi continues to perform on an RFA bridge-deal, there will be plenty of excess value and cap-space to fill in the gaps in the roster. 

[Imyourhuckleberry]

11 hours ago, 1Brotherbill said:

People acting like this is the worst contract in the history of the NHL.  Also, acting like this absorbs all the money from the Buyouts.

Minnesota has 21 million to play with next off season even with this contract.  Kiril is more than likely getting extended but even so he is only going to get a 1 or 2 million dollar raise.  They have a lot of flexibility going into next season.

I don't really see anyone acting like this is the worst contract in the NHL, but I mainly view hockey opinions here, which primarily seems to be sheltered from people that don't know much about current NHL financials.

Kirill will get a pay increase exceeding $2M, but that won't apply until 26-27 since he is signed through 25-26.

The Wild have less than a $13M difference between their 24-25 and 25-26 cap hits currently, with at least 6 open roster spots, including RFA Marco Rossi, who will be making more than $863k next season. I'm guessing Johansson and Merrill will be gone, but they could give RFA Khusnutdinov a raise as well for 25-26.

We likely see Buium, Wallstedt, and Yurov fill in for low cost deals, which will help, but Wallstedt might be more than expected if he gets significant NHL ice time this season.  They don't have $20M to make multiple super splashy free agent additions unless they trade out some money, but they definitely should be in okay shape with the cap projected to jump nearly $6M.

Faber is a good player at a good price for what he projects to be. Guerin seems to have his team mostly set for 25-26, but could make a couple nice additions to set them up for success in that season and beyond.

Edited July 30 by Imyourhuckleberry

[Imyourhuckleberry]

34 minutes ago, Imyourhuckleberry said:

I made a mistake there. Should be a cap increase around $4M, reducing the added space to round $17M for next season. If we slot in $5M for Rossi and $4M total for Khusnutdinov, Yurov, Buium, and Wallstedt, that would leave around $8M for a free agent splash. 

[Pewterschmidt]

17 hours ago, MacGyver said:

This is not how Billy operates. He works from emotion not reason. I think he viewed Parise and Suter as someone who might challenge him and want some level of input on how the team functions and is structured. Only room for one alpha when Billy's around. Kaprizov will never get the control ODC thinks he should have not with Billy at the helm. If Kaprizov ever dared tried flex any control muscle he'd be gone faster than Talbot. 

While i agree with your assessment on Guerin needing to be the only alpha and I like and agree with your take on parise/suter buyouts, I disagree on the Kirill take.  I think Guerin understands how good 97 is and he know his job and reputation will depend on 1) resigning 97 or 2) getting fair value return is 97 walks. 

I think that's Guerin's achilles heal.  there's a degree of bully petulance to him that i do not like.  That said, if he can build a organization and hockey team that wins when it matters I am happy to look the other way on his personality problems.  But Pewter, he's got to have a big ego to become a hall of fame NHL'r...I get that and accept that.  If the day comes that he's as good a GM'ing as he was at ice hockey I will have no issues with Guerin.  Judgement day is approaching fast.  Ogre and Hooz nuts have arrived.  Yurov is the next white knight.  Those players need to be difference makers to offset the apathetic old core extensions for Guerin to still be here 5 years from now (along with 97 resigning here).  But Pewter what about Zeev...this fan will not re-set the Guerin judgement clock after every draft.  Get it done Guerin.  Time to deliver on all the promises.

[raithis]

20 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

I hate buyouts. I realize there's a bit of a safety net, but I hate thinking that way. Dead money just makes me mad. Yeah, I've really tempered expectations the last 5 seasons, and probably would have done buyouts differently. I'd have at least had a conversation with Suter and Parise before just jettisoning them. I think we could have gotten a couple more years of usefulness out of them before sending them off which would have made the penalties less. They were already on the downside of actual salary. Maybe the same result would have happened, but I'd have at least given them an opportunity to waive their NMCs to keep better players. Maybe the waive, maybe they don't. 

Remember that jettisoning Parise and Suter initially.gave US a windfall where we were able to re-sign Kaprizov, Fiala, and afford some trades at the deadline.  Keeping one or both them on an additional year probably comes at the expense of re-signing Fiala much earlier and likely means that Faber doesn't get scouted as well.

Yes, it could have been done a little more tactfully (Guerin doesn't always seem to have much of that trait), but I think it was the right time to do it and I'm glad he had the brashness to do it.  I also feel like neither player would have been willing to drop their clause for expansion, and maybe he knew that. 

There also have been stories how both Parise and Suter would do their own thing and wouldn't listen to coaches, etc.  If those stories are accurate, then Guerin might have just felt it was best to rip the band-aid off and let it heal. 

Sometimes you need to take a bold step to show people that it's a new direction.  It's been a low-level rebuild of sorts.  That's what you do.  You tear things a bit down and deal with the aftermath for a couple seasons.  In our case, it was buy-outs rather than another team that might have been bottom feeders and out of the playoffs for 5-6 years.

I know we also talk about how Leipold wanted the team to be competitive during the buy-outs, but it could have just as easily been part of a promise to Kaprizov as well.  The kid wants to compete.  Would he have wanted to re-sign on to a team knowing he wasn't likely to even touch the playoffs for most or all of his contract if we had done a full rebuild?  I doubt it.  Yeah, we held his rights, but he could have just refused to sign too.

[MacGyver]

13 hours ago, B1GKappa97 said:

Umm so you don't think that Kaprizov had anything to do with Zuccarello getting an extension? 'kay then. 

This is a whole lot of conjecture on your part and clearly biased at that. Talbot didn't try to flex control, he had his wife bitch about the HC via social media and his agent bitch about the GM, also through the media. All because he couldn't handle competition with MAF. He clearly wanted out and he got it. 

I don't think Kaprizov had to say one word about the Zuccarello extension.  It was obvious to even Guerin that Zuccarello is Kaprizovs emotional support toy to play with and he needs to keep him for that purpose alone.   Umm this entire forum is made of posts that are largely conjecture with plenty of bias thrown in. I'm hardly unique here. Of course Talbot did not try to flex any control I never said that. I was referring to how quickly he was traded out of here after the first round exit to St. Louis.  Talbot was butt hurt by not playing in the playoffs until game six when it was do or die. He got thrown under the St. Louis bus. Was that all Evason? We will never know but it wouldn't be a shocker to learn Billy was pulling a few strings and interjecting himself in that decision given his tight relationship with Fluery. It was ineptitude in the playoffs that wrote Talbot's ticket out.  His wife and agent made the mistake of finger pointing publicly. I would argue it's Billy who has the thin skin. 

[B1GKappa97]

19 hours ago, MacGyver said:

1) I don't think Kaprizov had to say one word about the Zuccarello extension.  It was obvious to even Guerin that Zuccarello is Kaprizovs emotional support toy to play with and he needs to keep him for that purpose alone. 

 2) Umm this entire forum is made of posts that are largely conjecture with plenty of bias thrown in. I'm hardly unique here. Of course Talbot did not try to flex any control I never said that. I was referring to how quickly he was traded out of here after the first round exit to St. Louis.  Talbot was butt hurt by not playing in the playoffs until game six when it was do or die. He got thrown under the St. Louis bus.

3) Was that all Evason? We will never know but it wouldn't be a shocker to learn Billy was pulling a few strings and interjecting himself in that decision given his tight relationship with Fluery. It was ineptitude in the playoffs that wrote Talbot's ticket out.  His wife and agent made the mistake of finger pointing publicly. I would argue it's Billy who has the thin skin. 

1) So #97 influenced the GM's decision on Zuccarello?

2) Talbot sucked against St Louis. Every single game he played them in. They had his number. 

3) You don't think Dean Evason, the most players friendly coach in Wild history, wanted a guy like MAF to get the record for playoff wins? I don't think the GM had to pull any strings for Dean to try and watch an NHL record be broken in front of him. 

Its not like Talbot has taken ANY team past round 1, before or after MN.

Edited July 31 by B1GKappa97

[MacGyver]

It should be obvious to anyone that Kaprizov had an influence on Zuccarello getting the extension. Given the relationship the two have it was a given Guerin was going to extend Zuccarello so yes Kaprizov had an indirect influence on the matter.  When I say a player trying to flex control that would mean going into Guerins office and saying this player needs to be traded for that player or this player needs an extension and this guy needs to go etc. 

Talbot was playing some of the best hockey he had in a long while leading up to the playoffs before he was sat in favor of Fluery. Are we playing to see a player set records or are we playing to win a Stanley Cup?

[B1GKappa97]

15 hours ago, MacGyver said:

Talbot was playing some of the best hockey he had in a long while leading up to the playoffs before he was sat in favor of Fluery. Are we playing to see a player set records or are we playing to win a Stanley Cup?

Playing to win a Stanley Cup... which is why we started MAF who's actually won some playoff series throughout his career over a guy who still has yet to make it out of round 1... 

I guess Evason is to blame for him not getting LA out of round 1 too? He gave up 16 goals in 3 games, which is about the same rate he was giving up goals to STL that season... In fact, his last 5 playoff appearances he hasn't given up less than 4 goals. 

Hard to win playoff games when you've gotta score 5 times...

Edited August 1 by B1GKappa97

[Willy the poor boy]

18 hours ago, MacGyver said:

It should be obvious to anyone that Kaprizov had an influence on Zuccarello getting the extension. Given the relationship the two have it was a given Guerin was going to extend Zuccarello so yes Kaprizov had an indirect influence on the matter.  When I say a player trying to flex control that would mean going into Guerins office and saying this player needs to be traded for that player or this player needs an extension and this guy needs to go etc. 

Talbot was playing some of the best hockey he had in a long while leading up to the playoffs before he was sat in favor of Fluery. Are we playing to see a player set records or are we playing to win a Stanley Cup?

Even teammates were pissed T bot didn't get the start. And the consensus at the time was that BG made the decision. BG didn't trade for MAF to sit on the bench for the playoffs, he made that trade specifically for the playoffs and that's why Tbot sat.

[MacGyver]

8 hours ago, Willy the poor boy said:

Even teammates were pissed T bot didn't get the start. And the consensus at the time was that BG made the decision. BG didn't trade for MAF to sit on the bench for the playoffs, he made that trade specifically for the playoffs and that's why Tbot sat.

Billy and MAF are tight from their Pittsburgh days. Another example of Billy working from emotion rather than sound reasoning. He didn't want Fluery to lose the game that put them out of the first round so Talbot was sacrificed to save face for Fluery. 

Of course Talbot was pissed. Who wouldn't be? 

[Mateo3xm]

On 7/29/2024 at 9:39 PM, mnfaninnc said:

Some will look to the equipment guy who flushed his career down the toilet. Yes, Guerin is emotional, yes, he'll yell, but as an employee that guy needed to know when to approach and when to wait.

Do you know what happened in that scenario or are you just speculating? I don’t think you or I know what went on with that. By all accounts that guy did a great job and had worked with the Wild for something like 10 years. There are many instances of Guerin being a hot head.

He comes across as an arrogant pr*ck sometimes and im definitely not the only one that thinks that.

[Mateo3xm]

On 7/29/2024 at 11:21 PM, 1Brotherbill said:

Kiril is more than likely getting extended but even so he is only going to get a 1 or 2 million dollar raise. 

I definitely wouldn’t be so sure about that..

[Mateo3xm]

On 7/30/2024 at 11:29 AM, Pewterschmidt said:

But Pewter, he's got to have a big ego to become a hall of fame NHL'r...I get that and accept that.  If the day comes that he's as good a GM'ing as he was at ice hockey I will have no issues with Guerin.

Let’s clarify that. Guerin is in the US Hockey Hall of Fame in Mn but not the Hockey Hall of fame in Toronto. There’s a Big difference.

[mnfaninnc]

34 minutes ago, Mateo3xm said:

He comes across as an arrogant pr*ck sometimes and im definitely not the only one that thinks that.

You're absolutely right about this, and he's also a very sore loser. Yes, by filing a complaint against Guerin, even if this guy was the very best equipment guy in the business, he flushed his career down the toilet. Nothing was going to happen with that. 

I don't know what truly happened, neither does anyone else outside of the building. But, the moment he filed the complaint, his Wild days were over, and he had to know that. 

We know Guerin gets hot under the collar a lot. As an employee, you have to know when this happens and when not to approach him about something or you're going to get yelled at. Sometimes it's just waiting 15 minutes, sometimes it's longer. This is about knowing people and how they behave. My experience says that a lot of people in a lower generation don't know how to do this. I have no idea what his age is, it's just a general observation. It's also a general observation that many in these lower generations are quick to get offended, and quick to get their feelings hurt, and it becomes some sort of a really big deal. It's not everyone, but it's enough to wonder what my generation has done to these kids to make them so weak.

[mnfaninnc]

On 8/1/2024 at 10:45 AM, B1GKappa97 said:

Playing to win a Stanley Cup... which is why we started MAF who's actually won some playoff series throughout his career over a guy who still has yet to make it out of round 1... 

I guess Evason is to blame for him not getting LA out of round 1 too? He gave up 16 goals in 3 games, which is about the same rate he was giving up goals to STL that season... In fact, his last 5 playoff appearances he hasn't given up less than 4 goals. 

Hard to win playoff games when you've gotta score 5 times...

Talbot had earned the start in game 1, that's it, that's all he earned. It was said that he and MAF were in a competition for starting games in the playoffs. Talbot had the better numbers against harder competition and had done his part to earn it. Just game 1. You go from there. Had he won game 1, he probably earned a start in game 2, though, I would have alternated them and let them know from the start that Talbot got game 1 and MAF game 2, just like they did in Dallas. Also, had Talbot won game 1, he would have been the game 3 starter for me, and would have earned that start. Had MAF won game 2 also, he would have earned a game 4 start. Then, we see who's hot. If both are hot, keep rotating. 

Perhaps he was butt hurt. He knows, everyone knows, he earned the start in game 1 and that was given to an inferior MAF. I'm not a Talbot supporter, and am glad we traded him for Goose, but you cannot deny that he won that competition.

[MacGyver]

16 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

I don't know what truly happened, neither does anyone else outside of the building. But, the moment he filed the complaint, his Wild days were over, and he had to know that. 

Not being transparent leads to speculation which is probably worse. So what really happened is probably pretty ugly. The player personnel guy (can't recall his name now) was quite well liked by the players. Russo reported at the time several players were upset enough they had to be talked down.  He knew he was done once he filed that complaint so he had probably had already come to the conclusion he was leaving anyway. His last act of defiance if you will was to file the complaint and at least shine some light on Guerin. The organization decided to bury this. Things like this can linger for a long time.  Guerin basically disappeared for two months afterwards.

In my working career I have worked with and for  personalities like Guerins. It's not pleasant or easy. You don't approach them on things you normally would or should with someone else because you never know what reaction you are going to get. Not because you are afraid of them but it's just not worth the aggravation at times. It ends up being a negative for the company in the long run because that person is a cog in the wheel that just does not fit well.  My educated guess is we will see another Guerin eruption in the future. People like this generally do not change and his past history would suggest this. 

 

[mnfaninnc]

3 hours ago, MacGyver said:

In my working career I have worked with and for  personalities like Guerins. It's not pleasant or easy. You don't approach them on things you normally would or should with someone else because you never know what reaction you are going to get. Not because you are afraid of them but it's just not worth the aggravation at times. It ends up being a negative for the company in the long run because that person is a cog in the wheel that just does not fit well.  My educated guess is we will see another Guerin eruption in the future. People like this generally do not change and his past history would suggest this. 

I think the way that Guerin works is he takes losses hard and winning cures everything for him. Sometimes he needs to sign off on things, but you've got to know when to approach. It used to be that a guy's secretary would have a good handle on when was a good time and when was not. I can understand that logistics was the number 1 priority for this guy, and it should have been since that was his job. However, this was not the number 1 priority for Guerin. What would have been nice is if some of this stuff could have been approved by an AGM....but that guy was in trouble too. 

Getting yelled at is never fun, but it happens. It's happened to me plenty of times. You've just got to time your needs with the superior when they can see you without being ready to chew someone's head off. It's a lot nicer to work with someone who's stable, but that doesn't always happen. I also don't think this was an isolated incident, and that it happened to him multiple times. However, there are people who have impeccable timing, and there are people whose timing is always bad. There are not multiple people in the Wild organization filing complaints against Guerin for this type of behavior.  This makes it look like sour grapes.

As for the public view, as in any other company, HR issues stay within the company and are buried. That is standard operating procedure with any company. It is not at all surprising that this episode has been transferred to the company's vault.