Bill & Dean Wrap Up Season

There is a fine line that separates failure and disappointment when a team does not meet its goals in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin is very clear on where he feels his team resides in spite of the Wild's recent first-round loss to the Dallas Stars.

"I would say this: I don't view this season as a failure. I do not," Guerin told reporters gathered to hear the year-end debrief from the GM and head coach Dean Evason.

"Did we reach our ultimate goal? We did not. But the season's not a failure," Guerin added. "It is extremely disappointing."

The GM, who won two Cups as a player and two more as an executive with the Pittsburgh Penguins, said he takes issue with the narrative that this is a team that can't win in the first round of the playoffs. He pointed out that the young core of players isn't responsible for the playoff performances of past teams.

"I think a lot has been made, there's been this narrative out there right now that, 'Oh, the Wild can't get past the first round. They can't get past the first round,'" Guerin said. "And I can understand the frustration, but there are a small handful of players who have been here for a lot of that and most of them are new."

"In my mind that's not the narrative of this team. We have a lot of new players, we have a lot of young players who are just getting going, and they weren't a part of that," he added. "We're going to write our own narrative, but that's not the narrative for this team, and I understand it is frustrating but I refuse to hold our players that are new here responsible for what's happened in the past. So with that being said, we're going to move forward and keep trying to get better and continue to try to build a team that can compete for a championship."

During a wide-ranging briefing that lasted almost 40 minutes, Guerin touched on a variety of topics relating to the Wild's evolution and what lies ahead. Central to much of the planning for the future are the severe cap penalties the team faces in the next two seasons related to the buyout of veterans Ryan Suter and Zach Parise.

The team has, according to CapFriendly.com, $14,743,588 in dead cap space next season and the season after that.

"I rarely bring this up, but I'm going to bring it up today because it's real and it's important and I think our players and our coaches deserve a lot of credit because they're fighting with one hand tied behind their back because of these cap restraints," Guerin said. "We don't apologize for it. It's fine. We're fine with it, but I think our players and our team have done a fantastic job of just ignoring that and just kind of moving on and playing hockey."

"So disappointing in the end? One hundred percent. I'm very disappointed. But I don't view this season as a failure. Our team played well. Back to back 100-point seasons. I think we have two of the best seasons that this franchise has ever had," Guerin said. "Winning's hard. It's hard. And we're working toward it."

Among the news shared by Guerin Tuesday, a day after players met with coaches, management and the media for their own exit sessions, was that the team had signed winger Marcus Johansson , to a two-year deal with an average annual cap hit of $2 million.
Johansson was reacquired by the Wild at the trade deadline and had instant chemistry with young star Matt Boldy.

As for other players on expiring contracts like Gustav Nyquist, Ryan Reaves and Oskar Sundqvist, all of whom joined the team during the season, Guerin said it's too soon to know if there's a fit given the cap crunch.

Ditto on veteran defenseman Matt Dumba whose contract is also up and who may simply not be able to fit into the team's current cap realities given his skill set and value on the open market.

"Matt and I had a really good talk yesterday," Guerin said. "We've been real open and honest with each other this whole year. It's tough but yeah we'll be in contact with him. Matt's been a heck of a player for this organization for a long time now. I think honestly the last three months he's played just some great hockey for us."

On the injury front along with known injures to Joel Eriksson Ek, who underwent surgery last week on his broken leg, and Ryan Hartman's knee injury which he is hoping won't require surgery, Guerin announced Frederick Gaudreau will require surgery for an abdominal injury.

"That's been going on for four months that he's been playing with that," Guerin said.

Guerin also mentioned that Mats Zuccarello was suffering from a high groin injury during the playoffs.

Although the majority of the questions during the lengthy briefing were directed at Guerin, head coach Dean Evason did talk about the self-evaluation that the coaching staff has made in the aftermath of the series loss.

"A couple of days ago we sat in the entire coaching staff and we went over every single decision we made in the playoffs certainly. What we could have done better, different, changed," Evason said. "I'm not going to get into all of them, but yeah there's mistakes that were made. There's no question. We have to be better as a coaching staff to get our team prepared to win in the playoffs. Very disappointing again to be up 2-1 and not be able to kind of have that desperation game, that nail-down, get it done. So we're going to continue to evaluate. Obviously like Billy's said, it's fresh. It's new. We've started the process and had real good chats and the one thing about our coaching staff is we don't hold punches about each other. We call each other out, decisions and all that kind of stuff, which I really like. It makes us all accountable, the same as we want our hockey club. So, we'll continue to talk about it and hopefully make the right decisions. We get back to the spot we want to be."

Guerin said it's too soon to know if there will be changes to the coaching staff before next season.

He will also be hiring a new staff to man the team's AHL affiliate in Iowa.

Given the cap crunch it is critical that young players in the system continue to evolve and grow and find roles with the big club.

It's already expected Brock Faber, who made such a strong impression after arriving after the college season, will be a part of the roster.

Guerin was also asked about a couple of young prospects who haven't yet been able to find enough consistency to their game to be everyday NHL players, Marco Rossi and Calen Addison.

Rossi, 20, the 9th overall pick in 2020, had a good start to the season, "but just wasn't ready," Guerin said. "And I think the worst thing that we could have done is just kind of force him in the lineup every night and that would have hurt his development. So I think he was in the best place possible and that was in the American Hockey League. He played a lot of minutes; he played every situation; he did exactly what was asked of him. I think Marco's going to spend the bulk of the summer here to focus on his fitness over here rather than going back home (to Austria). Which is great."

Addison, 23, did show promise at the NHL level on the power play but Guerin said it's his overall game that needs to improve.

"He was great on the power play but you know, he really struggled five-on-five," Guerin said. "And you know, Deano and I both had good talks with him yesterday and he has ability, he has ability to be better five-on-five and he needs to be and that needs to be his focus. You can't just be a specialty player in the National Hockey League. It's just too good. There's no room on a roster for just a specialty guy."

As for young players who are NHL regulars, Boldy, Kirill Kaprizov and Filip Gustavsson, who talked on Monday about being disappointed in their individual playoff performances, Guerin praised their candor.

"I will tell you this as frustrated as or as disappointed as I am or Dean is or the fan base or anybody sitting in here, the players are more disappointed than anybody," Guerin said. "And they're not happy about this. They're not. And yeah I think when you have good character yeah you can look in the mirror and say yeah I didn't do enough. And I think those guys were man enough to hold themselves accountable and they are."

Specifically on Boldy who did not score and had just three assists in six games, Guerin said he's going to have to learn how to play the playoff game which is starkly different than the regular season game.

"He's got to change certain things in his game," Guerin said. "It is a different game in the playoffs. It's just different. And I think a lot of people get frustrated with that in hockey, but I think it's one of the things that makes hockey great is that it is a whole different ballgame. You look at the goals that are scored, they're hard goals. There's not a lot of pretty goals and you just got to get your nose dirty. For him that's something that he's got to work on."