Wild to Hire Penguins Asst. Bill Guerin as New GM

PHOTO: MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
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Bill Guerin isn’t the guy with a bunch of experience in the NHL front offices like many thought they Wild would bring in as their new GM but he does bring a couple of things the Wild were looking for.

First (and foremost), he is a people motivator, unlike Paul Fenton. If you read Russo’s story on his departure or heard it second-hand everywhere else, Paul Fenton was a cancer in his own organization and it spread quickly throughout the rest of the organization, to a point where Craig Leipold was clearly worried about ruining the organizational reputation he had built for 2 decades.

It doesn’t appear that will be a problem anymore. All signals point to Guerin being a guy that all employees and members of the Minnesota Wild organization will be able to rally around.

Second, he played the game. When I read and heard Michael Russo talk about the GM search, he mentioned multiple times that the Wild had their eye out for someone who had played the game and could see the game from the eyes of a player. Lue Nanne said that was one thing he was looking for too, in an interview I heard with him on KFAN. They definitely got that in Guerin, who has played for a long time and won a lot of games.

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Bill will have to get to work right away because the Wild have been sitting on their hands since moving on from Fenton and the roster, according to Russo, is all fucked up (not his words) with players who are either playing out of position or playing on lines they shouldn’t be.

This won’t be an easy job for Guerin but if he can turn it around and put the Wild back into the playoffs… he’ll quickly find that Minnesota hockey fans are as loyal as they come, and addicted to winning games.

Oh, and if you win a title here, you get a statue built immediately. Just another perk.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

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