By Tom Schreier -
Bill Guerin had his infamous spat with Minnesota Wild reporter Michael Russo nearly a year ago. On May 2, 2023, Guerin unsolicitedly offered Minnesota’s cap restraints as an excuse for losing. He also took exception to Russo asking what the Wild had to do to get over their first-round “hump.”
“I'm not trying to be a smart ass, Mike,” Guerin responded. “They're not going to put our name on the Stanley Cup to get to the second round. They're not going to give us a ring. But you know what? That's not our goal. Our goal is not to make it to the second round. Is it going to feel any better? It's not.”
The Wild won’t get to the second round this year because they missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2018-19 season. They also can’t win a championship if they don’t make it to the second round. Minnesota hasn’t won a playoff series since the 2014-15 season, and they haven’t reached the Western Conference Finals since 2002-03. But playoff hockey felt like a given in St. Paul, even if the Wild have routinely had brief appearances.
A year ago, Guerin didn’t feel that his team should carry the narrative of losing in the first round. Until this season, the Wild had lost in the first round seven of the past eight seasons. However, many current players weren’t around for the early part of the streak.
"I refuse to hold our new players responsible for what's happened in the past,” Guerin said.
Still, Peter DeBoer had outcoached Dean Evason with the Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars in 2020-21 and 2022-23. In between, St. Louis Blues coach Craig Berube beat him with the clipboard in 2021-22. It’s difficult to fire a coach after two 100-plus seasons. But a year ago, Guerin insinuated that the Stanley Cup was his goal, not regular-season success.
Evason knew why Guerin called a meeting with him after the team started 5-10-4 in late November. “Evason walked into Guerin’s office, looked at his face as he sat behind his desk, and knew right away: ‘Are you firing me, bud?’” Russo reported on November 29. “‘He said, ‘Yeah,’ and he stood up, came around the desk, and we hugged and he just started crying,’ Evason said. ‘And so did I.’”
Anyone can understand why that’s a challenging conversation. Paul Fenton had hired Evason, who had worked with him in the Nashville Predators organization. But Guerin retained Evason and removed his interim tag. Evason likely would succeed in coaching veteran players with championship expectations. However, Minnesota’s only chance at contending and retaining Kirill Kaprizov will be by maximizing their farm system, and Evason didn’t seem to trust young players.
It would always be difficult for Guerin to fire Evason. However, the conversation would be more straightforward if Guerin had set a championship standard. Championship teams don’t count the number of 100-point seasons they have, and they expect to get out of the first round. Championship coaches don’t get out-coached three years in a row.
Evason knew what Guerin was doing when he walked into his office after a 5-10-4 start. Had the Wild set a championship standard, Evason would have known what the conversation would be when Guerin walked into his office after another first-round exit. It’s one thing to verbalize a desire to win a Stanley Cup; it’s another thing to act on it. By retaining Evason and a similar roster this year, Minnesota permitted losing in the first round as an acceptable result. Then, the Wild immediately fell too far behind in the standings to recover.
“It had just gotten to that point where almost no matter what they did, the guys were having a hard time executing and generating and generating offense,” Guerin said. “Something had to change. 'We can't trade 23 players,' is the old saying.”
It’s difficult for Guerin to trade players because he signed many of them, including myriad declining veterans, to contracts with no-trade clauses. The Wild are not generating offense because they don’t have enough skill on the roster, mainly because Guerin prioritizes size and veteran experience over raw talent.
The Wild also couldn’t recover because they lost nearly every time they crept back into the playoff picture. They also weren’t going to win a playoff series this year. Minnesota was 0-9-1 against the Dallas Stars, Winnipeg Jets, and Colorado Avalanche – the three best teams in the Central. Guerin has locked most of that core into binding deals, tacitly indicating that he believes they’ve proven enough to be part of the Wild’s long-term future.
After periodically using injuries and bad bounces as excuses this year, the players and Guerin took a different approach at their end-of-season press conference.
“There are no excuses,” Guerin said. “There were injuries, but that wasn’t why we didn’t make the playoffs. It’s a contributing factor but not the big reason. When I hear that our players say they were mentally fragile, I would agree with them. And if they said they weren’t competitive enough in big games, I would agree. We have to find our swagger.”
Swagger isn’t the correct answer, either. It’s skill. Confidence usually comes from an understanding that a team is good enough to win. The Wild weren’t this season, and they will have a similar roster next season. Perhaps young players like Jesper Wallstedt, Liam Ohgren, and Marat Khusnutdinov step into more significant roles next year.
That’s the best way to improve an aging, flawed roster. But under Guerin, the Wild have typically been reluctant to empower their young players. He wants girth and guile. However, size and experience can only take a team so far. Ultimately, they need more skill to compete with the best teams in the West.
“Kirill wants to win. I know that,” Guerin said. “And, yeah, I do feel we need to show him we’re committed to winning.”
Without a top pick and a flawed, immovable core, how do the Wild become a contender before Kaprizov is a contender in 2026-27? How do they build out a second line so they can score enough to beat playoff opponents? How do they get over the hump? Guerin has become Ty Cobb, measuring players by height. Kaprizov probably thinks more like Judge Smails.
He would like to know if they can score.
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