Wild GM Bill Guerin: ‘I don’t expect this to be a bad team. We’re not.’

Now in his fifth season as the Minnesota Wilds general manager, Bill Guerin is a two-time Stanley Cup winner as a player and had a two-decade career on the ice with eight different teams.

Since retirement, he has become a front-office fixture, first with Pittsburgh and then starting in the summer of 2019 as the Wilds fourth general manager.

In addition to his duties running the NHL team, Guerin took on the added responsibility of picking Team USA for the upcoming 4 Nations tournament, which will be played Feb.

12-20 in Boston and Montreal.

During the 2024-25 season, he has dealt with the salary cap issues that have been a fact of life for the Wild since he took the GM job, and has navigated a notable string of injuries that have meant missed weeks and even months for a half-dozen key players.

Between periods of a recent home game, Guerin sat down with the Pioneer Press for an exclusive talk about the challenges of his high risk, high reward occupation.

What made you want to take on the Team USA job? Why wouldnt you want to do it? Thats a dream come true.

I mean, yeah, its extra work, but its a pretty unbelievable honor to have the position.

And you know what? I love the work.

Im getting to work with some really special people, too.

So, its great.

I dont mind it.

Many of us in Minnesota met you for the first time in 2005 when you played for Team USA here in the World Cup.

USA Hockey has always been a big part of your life.

It means a lot to me.

I was 9 years old when the Miracle (on Ice) happened and then I was able to play for Team USA and its always been really important to me.

I think the more people that we have that played, and that are committed to it and help and want to get involved, the better.

There are so many bright guys out there in the league, like (assistant general manager) Jeff Kealty in Nashville.

Hes running the World Championships here.

(Florida assistant general manager) Brett Peterson did last year.

These guys are really smart, theyre involved.

Its really good.

I think its really important and, you know, weve got a good thing going on.

You played with emotion and we see your emotion come out sometimes now, like when we talk about the hit that injured Jared Spurgeon and things like that.

Do you have to change your personality to be a GM, to keep more of an even keel, and is that something you had to learn in this job? I keep my emotions in check for the most part.

Thats the one thing that that gets me is when my players are hurt on stupid plays like that.

Other than that, I can deal with the ups and downs, but I dont think you should change.

I tried that once and it didnt work.

I wasnt myself and I didnt like it, and I said, (Screw) this, Im going back to being myself.

And thats it.

I wont change for anybody.

With the number of injuries, have you had to kind of keep an even keel and be patient this season? When (injuries) happen, I get pretty upset.

I get pretty emotional and angry, but you know what? That goes away.

Its one of those things where you have to sleep on it, and that dissipates and then youve gotta get to business and youve got a problem to solve.

So, you dont really have a lot of time to be mad.

You have to figure it out.

When we talked to Wild owner Craig Leipold in the preseason, a lot of the conversation was about how Next year were gonna have this cap space, next year were gonna be able to do things.

Has this season been a pleasant surprise with how well the team has played considering all the other factors that have gone into this year? This is what I expected.

I expect us to be good.

I dont expect this to be a bad team.

Were not.

Were good, despite everybody bringing up the cap hits.

It hasnt made a hill of beans difference for us.

Itll be nice to get it back, but weve been good.

We are a good team.

You look at our players.

Its just when we get into injury trouble, we dont have the depth that can really recover from that.

So, injuries hurt us in a different way.

Youve seen guys like David Jiricek and Liam Ohgren kind of grow up before your eyes here, among some of the guys that have been thrust into bigger roles ...

Theyre growing up, they havent grown up.

They still have a lot to learn, so theyre not a finished product, thats for sure.

They need to just keep working, listen to their coaches, listen to the development guys, theyll be fine.

But theyve got a lot to learn.

Youve got 4 Nations coming up and then right after that is the NHL trade deadline.

Do you get to sleep at all? I sleep like a baby, actually.

Its kind of funny, but I do.

You know what? I really enjoy it.

Im not a very stressful guy.

Because I get emotional sometimes you might think that I have a lot of stress in my life.

I dont.

I think Im pretty lucky because Im naturally laid back.

I dont feel a lot of stress or pressure.

I just focus on my task.

And I will tell you the biggest thing for me, the most important thing for me, is the help I have.

The people that are around me with the Minnesota Wild the assistant general managers, all the directors of the departments theyre world class.

And then the guys at USA Hockey, all the other general managers and (Wild assistant general manager) Chris Kelleher, they are world class people.

Im not doing this alone.

Im not.

Its your name at the top of the masthead, though, right? Yeah, but honestly the people that I get to work with take so much off of my plate and they take so much workload away from me and stress out of my life that I can focus on the big decisions.

and Im very, very grateful for that.

I couldnt do it without the people that I have.

And I have a really supportive family.

They give me great advice and keep me humble and give me lots of love, no matter what.

Those are the things that allow me to do this.

The people in my life allow me to do this relatively stress free.

You played with Marc-Andre Fleury, a long time ago.

How much fun is it to be his boss and see what hes doing late in his career? Its great.

Its awesome.

I joked with him when he first got here and said, Well now you have to call me boss.

And so every now and then hell be like, Hey boss, how you doing? But its great.

Hes just been everything that we expected him to be.

I think just his presence, his leadership, his guidance, kind of showing guys how a Hall of Famer operates day in and day out.

Hes as good as advertised.

Hes been great.

Tom Chorske sent out the YouTube of you and several Devils bringing the Stanley Cup on set with David Letterman after you won it in 1995.

I noticed you were the only guy who sat down.

Were you expecting to get interviewed at that point? I would watch Letterman every night, and I just wanted to sit in the chair.

That was it.

I knew what we were doing.

They told us exactly what we were doing, but I just wanted to sit down and just say that I sat in the chair.

I sat in the chair.

That was it.

That had to be a pretty incredible part of your life.

That was.

That was an incredible moment.

Because David Letterman was as big as they get back then.

You know, it was David Letterman.

I wasnt gonna waste the opportunity.

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