Minnesota Wild Season Grades: Front Office

Grading the front office is a dicey proposition. Do you grade the current product, the future they are building, or the way they handle dealing with past mistakes? For better or worse, we went with all of the above. 

Chuck Fletcher was handed a difficult task: Win now, oh, and build a long-term winner out of nothing. Impossible is nothing compared to what Fletcher faces. Such is the life for the guy who takes over from HWSRN. No matter how soon he can be rid of the mistakes of the former regime, the scars are already there.

Simply being rid of the mistakes does not fix them. In order to truly "fix" this franchise, Fletcher and his team have to not only dig out of the hole, but then fill it in. They have bad contracts to deal with, players who do not fit the new mold, and an organization that has to be deprogrammed before it can be reprogrammed.

This is a huge undertaking. Now add in that he doesn't have the option of a true rebuild. I don't envy the man.

GRADES

The only real negative could be a lack of movement during the regular season, which isn't really a knock on the brass, since they're still feeling the effects of that other GM's ravaging of the team and it's salary cap. Also, making trades for the sake of making trades, like Fletch seemed to do last year, doesn't always work, so I'm commending him for keeping a calm trigger-finger this year. Patience is key for this team as the bad deal will start to expire and the young guns in the organization will start making their cases for their spots on the team. 

Elise- GRADE: C+ The front office was put into a very tough position with the changeover from Risebrough to rookie GM Fletcher. The types of moves DR made in his time here are the ones that are hard to rebuild from, but you can see from the moves Fletcher is making that it has a direction. Not all of the trades have been the greatest (I think we covered that enough in the individual grades) but the signing of college free agents and preparing for the future with promising draft picks is some relief for Wild fans.

Dan- GRADE: B- I did not expect to see Fletcher butcher the roster into something his own because lets face it, the Wild still need a competitive group to play and please the fans. But I certainly didn't expect Richards to get fired. For a team that is hoping to create long-term success, firing his first coach in GMCF's tenure in only 2 years is not a good sign. However, I am very pleased with his first draft (2010) as well as the hiring of Rick Wilson, Brent Flahr and as well as his rookie free agent signings.

Bryan- GRADE: C+ Chuck Fletcher is doing his damndest to build a winner. Craig Leipold wants to win, and as much as Tom Powers and some fans think the guy is cheap, he isn't. He is paying for a losing, cap strapped team, and losing his shirt doing it. The team continues to be solid on the fan experience side, and business-wise. The results need to follow on the ice, and that falls to Fletcher, not Leipold. For those asking, no, the owner should not be involved in that, no matter what. It would be a disaster if he was.

Cumulative GPA: 2.65 B-

Final Thought

I, for one, am not sure how long to give the front office before judging too harshly. With the first wave of Chuck Fletcher's drafting not even in place yet, it would be completely unfair to call it a failure. At the same time, if tasked with winning now, you have to win now, and that isn't happening. Fair or not, it is what he was asked to do.

The work of undoing what HWSRN did to this franchise will take years. I'm a patient man, and I don't mind watching the Wild lose, should it mean they get better in the future. Right now, as always, we get neither winning nor "proper" losing. 

The only hope is that the drafting is monumentally better than it has been in the past. I still have faith.