Wild promote Bill Guerin to president of hockey operations

The Minnesota Wild made some changes in their front office. Bill Guerin has been added to the role of president of hockey operations. He will continue serving as the team’s general manager. He has been the general manager of the Wild since the 2019-20 season. He will be entering the fifth season with the team this year.

“Four years ago, Bill brought his championship pedigree to our organization and the improvements he’s made to our hockey team and organization are self-evident,” Wild owner Craig Leipold said in the press release. “The results are both tangible and intangible and he continues to demonstrate his talent for building a Stanley Cup contending team. We are excited about what the future holds for fans in the State of Hockey.” 

The promotion comes as a major show of confidence in Guerin from Wild ownership. In the four years of Guerin’s tenure as GM, the Wild have made the playoffs every season, albeit losing in the qualifying round during the COVID-19-shortened 2019-20 season. However, they haven’t won a single playoff series during that span. He was also responsible for making the hard decisions to buy out the contracts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, which will cost the Wild dearly for the next two seasons.

However, he wasn’t the one who signed the contracts, merely dealing with the consequences of someone else’s costly mistake. The Parise/Suter buyouts will take up roughly $14.75 million of the Wild’s cap space over the next couple of years, severely limiting Guerin’s ability to improve the roster. Nonetheless, Guerin has built a strong playoff team in the State of Hockey, including players like Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello and Filip Gustavsson.

Guerin was a longtime NHL player who played 1,263 games in the league for the New Jersey Devils, Edmonton Oilers, Boston Bruins, Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, San Jose Sharks, New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins.