By Tom Schreier -
Bill Guerin wants players who want to stay in Minnesota. "We like the players," Guerin said after signing Marcus Foligno and Mats Zuccarello to extensions. "They are invested in the Wild, and they want to win here. I believe in these guys. I love what they bring to the table — on the ice, off the ice, in the dressing room.
"I think they're a part of how we can get better here."
Guerin also was trying to ensure he could maintain a competitive roster while the Wild had $15 million in dead cap after he bought Zach Parise and Ryan Suter out. "I like having cost certainty going forward," Guerin said after extending Ryan Hartman. "These three guys have all expressed how much they wanted to stay here. We wanted to keep them."
The players have expressed their desire to play in St. Paul.
"This is where I want to be," Zuccarello said. "Why not do it as quick as possible and get it out of the way?"
"No-brainer, for sure," said Gaudreau, who signed a five-year, $10.5 million deal with a 15-team no-trade clause instead of testing the free-agent market last April. "My heart is here."
Home is where the heart is. But it’s a little easier to grow fond of a place when they hand you a full-guaranteed contract with no-move clauses. And some of Minnesota’s newly-extended players have grown too comfortable or are regressing. Foligno and Hartman occasionally play reckless hockey. Gaudreau hasn’t been productive.
Zuccarrello’s deal is the most reasonable. He’s still playing well and has good chemistry with Kirill Kaprizov. But going one for four isn’t going to help the Wild, especially in a season where they should be sellers. They could have traded Foligno, Hartman, or Gaudreau had they not extended them and used this season to get a valuable draft pick.
Instead, they’re trying to grab the final playoff spot, hoping that the Vancouver Canucks, Dallas Stars, or Colorado Avalanche don’t turn them into mincemeat in the playoffs. Anything can happen in the postseason, the old saying goes. Instead, the Wild have been a tease ever since they fired Dean Evason.
Their four-game win streak after hiring Hynes looked like a new-coach bump. But they won 11 of Hynes’ first 14 games, indicating he was doing something right. Then they lost eight of their next nine games, suggesting the new-coach smell had worn off. The Nashville Predators and Anaheim Ducks beat Minnesota before the All-Star break, which looked like a death knell.
But then they won four straight, including a game in Vegas, before the Buffalo Sabres beat them in overtime on Saturday. The Vegas Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup last year; Buffalo hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2010-11 season. Their 10-7 comeback over the Vancouver Canucks was a microcosm of their season. So it goes with the Wild. They’re good enough to get you invested, then lose in a way that feels almost personal. Then they start winning again.
Guerin has unintentionally built high variance into their DNA. He tried to lock in a core he believed would get the Wild through the Parise-Suter buyout years. But he failed to account for regression. Hartman is slowly devolving from a glue guy into a goon. Gaudreau’s production has slowed in the first year of his extension; Foligno will be in his mid-30s when his is up. Zuccarello no longer regularly plays on Kaprizov’s line.
It also doesn’t help that Guerin is a chaos agent. He traded Cam Talbot in a fit of pique. He also mutually parted ways with his cap guy in the middle of cap hell, and the league investigated him for verbal abuse. Guerin’s tenure as a player and league executive may be a virtue. But his irascible nature can be a vice. His loyalty, or insistence on cost certainty, falls somewhere in between. Lately, it has hampered the Wild. At the very least, it’s made them an inconsistent team.
Most good teams value veterans and solid depth players. But they don’t wantonly extend them to contracts with no-move contracts to account for variance. Players regress. Teams unexpectedly have bad seasons. Sometimes, a top pick is more valuable to the organization than the revenue from two or three playoff games. Guerin thought he was creating stability by signing players to long-term contracts. Instead, he created chaos.
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