One-on-one: Bill Guerin on the Wild life

Bill Guerin has been around the game for most of his life. He trained under a couple of general managers for whom he has obvious admiration and respect. He spent the better part of a decade learning his craft, getting ready for the opportunity he finally received last summer.

But nothing Guerin did or experienced during his time in the Penguins' front office fully prepared him for the range of his duties as general manager in Minnesota.

Nothing could have.

Mostly, he said, because there was no way to truly get ready for "getting pulled in so many different directions." Not when you've been used to someone else being in charge.



"You just don't understand that or realize it until you're there," Guerin said Thursday by phone. "As an assistant GM, I had a role and I carried that out on a daily basis. That was my contribution to the team. But as a GM, you're the general manager, so you're managing everybody. You're putting people in positions and trusting them to do their job, and making sure it all comes together. You have a lot more balls in the air."

Fortunately for Guerin, a right winger on the Penguins' Stanley Cup-winning team in 2009, he had a couple of mentors who were adept at juggling multiple responsibilities after he joined the club as a player-development coach in 2011.

"Everything I know that's allowed me to get this job was learned in Pittsburgh," he said. "Ray Shero, Jim Rutherford and everybody that's worked under those two GMs that I worked for, I've learned from."

Guerin named names, too, singling out Jason Botterill, Tom Fitzgerald, and Jason Karmanos, the first two of whom are now GMs in Buffalo and New Jersey, respectively.

"All those guys," he said. "I've learned so much from them. I can't even start (to explain). It's too much."

Coincidentally or otherwise, Guerin made his first significant trade as GM of the Wild with Rutherford, sending Jason Zucker to the Penguins for a first-round draft choice, Alex Galchenyuk and defense prospect Calen Addison. The deal met the objectives of both sides; the Penguins wanted a top-six forward -- ideally, one with significant time left on his contract -- while Minnesota was shopping for an infusion of young talent.

And while negotiating with his former boss could have been awkward, Guerin said it all went smoothly, in part because of the approach Rutherford takes when exploring possible trades.

"It was actually great, because I always liked the way Jim kind of talked things through and took his time and went over scenarios for both teams," he said. "We didn't rush through it. We were both clear on what we wanted, and we just worked through it. For my first trade, it was a great experience."

The coronavirus pandemic forced the NHL to pause its 2019-20 season just a few weeks later, and any routine Guerin had established for executing his duties was obliterated. But while the way he does his job is different, at least for now, he isn't struggling to stay busy.

"I don't go into the office," Guerin said. "There are no games to be seen, so that cuts back on (the workload). There are no roster moves to make. That changes it. But there are also still a lot of things to get done. We're potentially having an earlier draft, so we had our scouting meetings over WebEx this week, and we're fine-tuning that. We're busy. There are things to be done."

He already has done quite a bit during his first nine months with the Wild, but also has resisted any temptation to gut the organization and totally rebuild it.

"I have a very good support staff here that has a lot of experience and has helped me a lot," Guerin said. "I have a lot of support from the ownership here, very similar to Pittsburgh, where (the owners) are very easy to deal with and you just know they're behind you. Craig (Leopold, the Wild owner) is real supportive, and that's nice. It's been a challenge -- I've had to make a lot of difficult decisions -- but I'm having a lot of fun with it, too. It's been great.

"There are things that you want to bring in as a new GM and change and over time you will, but I learned this from Jim: There are some things that have been done very well here, good people and things that work well, and you want to keep them. I always think back to Jim.

"He came in and could have blown the whole thing up, but he took his time and stuck with people and worked through things. Over time, things changed and I think (that approach) served everybody well, so I'm trying to do a little bit of that. You can't change everything overnight, nor do you want to."

That doesn't mean Guerin is afraid to alter the status quo. He replaced Bruce Boudreau as coach with Dean Evason in February, and fired two members of his scouting staff earlier this week, as he continues to evaluate members of the organization.

"That's an ongoing process," he said. "You're constantly assessing people."

That process, much like the NHL season, was disrupted by the pandemic. Whether the Wild will play again before the 2020-21 season remains to be determined; Minnesota was 35-27-7 and one point out of a tie for the second Western Conference wild card when the NHL suspended play.

Guerin's mandate is to mold the Wild into Stanley Cup contenders, a process that still is in progress but that he suggested might be a bit closer to attaining its goal than some people -- including some in the organization -- realize.

"I can't give you a timeline," he said. "I think we're a good team, though. Sometimes change needs to happen, and sometimes we need to push ourselves a little bit harder and expect more from ourselves. I think that's the case here. I think we're better than we give ourselves credit for."