If you though the changes in Minnesota were over following the big trades they made this season, you were wrong. Michael Russo of The Athletic (subscription required) reports that the team have fired former assistant general managers Andrew Brunette and Shep Harder along with lead hockey researcher Andrew C. Thomas. Russo adds that Chris O’Hearn could potentially be brought in as a replacement AGM, and Bruce Boudreau is expected to return as head coach.
All three of the people the Wild let go would’ve seen their contracts come to an end this summer, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were looking for a shakeup in the front office. After years of making the playoffs but failing to progress, the team brought in GM Paul Fenton to enact drastic change on the organization. The roster looks much different after veterans like Nino Niederreiter, Mikael Granlund and Charlie Coyle were all sent packing, and now the front office will have several new voices as well.
Brunette especially was a well known member of the Wild, going back to his playing days with the team. The veteran of 1,110 NHL games spent several seasons in Minnesota over two stints with the team, and re-joined the organization after retirement in 2012. Harder too had been with the team for more than a decade, starting as an intern.
The Wild missed the playoffs this year for the first time since 2012, but made a commitment to get younger by acquiring pieces like Victor Rask, Ryan Donato and Kevin Fiala. The team also signed top college free agent Nico Sturm, and will have a chance tomorrow at winning the draft lottery to move up in the first round. Still, there are big decisions to be made on what direction the team takes this summer. Veteran defenseman Jared Spurgeon will be entering the final year of his current contract and is eligible for an extension on July 1st. So too is Mikko Koivu, though his future depends much more on how his 36-year old body responds to a major knee injury.
There’s also plenty of work to be done, as Sturm, Donato, Fiala, Joel Eriksson Ek, Pontus Aberg are all restricted free agents that need new contracts. If all five of those players are back with full-time roles, there may not be enough room for the rest of the veteran group including Jason Zucker, who was close to being traded to the Calgary Flames at the deadline and could be a candidate to be moved this summer.
Darby Hendrickson is still around I gues
Not really a ‘great hockey mind’ but for all the complaining MN fans did when it came to the former leadership, the new leadership they wanted ended a long run of playoff appearances.
– your thoughts:
1. Due to injury?
or
2. Due to building for the future?
Probably a bit of both. Making the playoffs for a long time is nice, but if nothing fruitful results from it (conference finals appearances at the least if not Stanley Cup Finals appearances) then its better to try and just retool/rebuild. The Rangers are basically going through the same thing right now. They had a decent streak of making the playoffs and aside from their Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2014 there wasn’t much to show for it.
I don’t believe they really thought losing the Captain would be as devastating as it was. He’s a Fightin’ Koivu! Head like a cinder block, plays a tough game and, apparently, a very underrated leader in the locker room & on the ice. Pontus F. Aberg DOESN’T need a new contract, he needs to get sent packing for the European Tour. Ryan Donato’s a keeper, Fiala probably as well. Eriksson Ek is a maybe, if he can be had on the cheap. Victor Rask could be traded for two bags of pucks & some dirt. Bouds may need to adjust his systems to make better use of the speed & skill that he does have. Roster isn’t overloaded with it, though. It’s almost like they’re in nowhere-land now…
Yes…to both. When Chuck Fletcher was GM here in Minnesota, he basically mortgaged the future of the Wild to get pieces that he thought were the answer. Obviously, they weren’t. Fenton basically sat on his hands for the first couple of months of the season, as he needed to see what there was on this team. Now he can start putting his mark and building the roster the way he and Boudreau want it. I think his picks ups of Hunt, Aberg and Bitetto were done as shots in the dark that he was familiar with. I am surprised that BB and PF couldn’t see how Niederreiter was being misused, but most of us Wild fans also missed on that. To answer the question directly, the injury to Dumba shows how short on scoring the Wild are. They had been shutout once while he was playing, then something like 12-13 times after he was out. As for the Koivu injury, the silver lining in that is Eriksson Ek got to play a larger role and appeared to show that he can fill that role. But I won’t be surprised if he is packaged in a trade this off-season.
The building for the future? Once Fenton was 100% assured that things needed to change, he started in on the younger core, and tried to get even younger. Coyle for Donato right now is looking like a steal for the Wild, but Coyle is now in the playoffs…so that still has to play out. Fiala for Granlund, right now that looks like a trade that was won by Nashville. But how many people noticed that the Preds started to slip a bit once they got Granlund. He is a really nice piece for a team, but he is not going to carry a team for a game or 2. But Fiala has a new, fresh start to show that he can be a game changer like Fenton has advertised. The common ground for these 2 trades was that PF picked up a couple of 22 yr old players, giving the team some added youth. Aberg was just trying to catch lightning in a bottle, but that bottle is broken. Bitetto SHOULD be a depth piece in Iowa next year. Hunt is a guy that can be the 7th Dman with the ability to play equally on either side, with the plus side of being decent as the QB of a PP. And Rask was a position of need that was cheaper than Niederreiter, though I didn’t think he would be as bad as he was. If he stays in Minnesota for the entire off-season to work on improving his skating, he might have a spot on the 4th line for the Wild next year. I think they should just cut their losses and buy him out now.