Wild’s Bill Guerin wins NHL GM of the year award after franchise-changing year of big swings

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin was in his kitchen rolling meatballs in December when Vancouver Canucks executive Jim Rutherford called to tell him the deal for Quinn Hughes was done.

Six months later, one of the biggest blockbusters in NHL history became the defining move of a year for the Wild that culminated Friday with Guerin being named the NHL’s general manager of the year.

At a Wayzata restaurant during the Wild’s pre-draft dinner for scouts and the front office on Thursday, Guerin’s wife and kids surprised him by showing up to present him with the Jim Gregory Award. Assistant general manager Chris Kelleher, who has worked for every GM in Wild history, helped arrange the surprise, which was announced after the 16th pick of the NHL Draft.

“I think he would be the first to say this: It’s a group thing,” said Kelleher, one of three Wild AGMs. “At the end of the day, they’re his decisions, and he’s the one who has to put his name on the line. But we’re all pitching in in our own different ways, and it’s all because we want to see him succeed as a GM and us succeed as a group and this team as a franchise. When I learned about the award, I got emotional and choked up. He had no idea. It was great.”

Guerin’s long game for the Wild has nothing to do with an individual award, of course. It’s to become a Stanley Cup champion.

But after spending years navigating the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter dead-cap penalties, resisting shortcuts and finally capitalizing by acquiring Quinn Hughes when the team regained financial flexibility, the award was affirmation that Guerin’s fellow 31 GMs, plus a panel of 10 other NHL executives and broadcast and print media, agreed this was a job well done.

The Wild made the playoffs for the sixth time in Guerin’s seven years, hitting the 100-point mark for the third time in that span.

Guerin’s bold year began in late September, when he signed Kirill Kaprizov to the most lucrative contract in NHL history (eight years, $136 million), then Filip Gustavsson to a five-year extension a few days later. His year continued by trading the equivalent of four first-round picks for Hughes, then adding Michael McCarron, Nick Foligno, Bobby Brink and Jeff Petry ahead of the trade deadline. Ultimately, the Wild advanced past the first round for the first time in 11 years before injuries to Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin derailed them in the second round against the Colorado Avalanche.

Along the way, Guerin was also the USA Hockey general manager who stuck to his gut and left stars such as Jason Robertson, Cole Caufield and Adam Fox off the U.S. Olympic team in favor of players such as Vincent Trocheck, J.T. Miller and (before he was injured and had to bow out) Seth Jones. Highly scrutinized for the decisions, Guerin was vindicated in late February when the United States beat Canada in the final for its first men’s hockey Olympic gold medal since 1980.

“And it drives him to want to bring a Stanley Cup here,” said Kelleher, who is also on Guerin’s USA Hockey front-office staff. “He made tough decisions and then was right about it. We helped put the team together and gave him our recommendations, but Billy was the one that had to put his name on the line to make those decisions. And he did, and he stood by them. He never wavered. He never questioned himself. And those types of decisions and that type of leadership are what we need to win the Stanley Cup.”

Chris MacFarland (Colorado, now with the Nashville Predators) and Pat Verbeek (Anaheim Ducks) were the other finalists for the award. It’s the first time in four years the Dallas Stars’ Jim Nill didn’t win it.

The Hughes trade unquestionably changed the trajectory of the franchise. In just 48 games with Minnesota, Hughes set single-season franchise records among defensemen with 48 assists and 53 points. He then had 15 points in 11 playoff games.

“Billy wants to be aggressive. He wants to make the team better. And when guys would come up and be available, it was tough because it was like: ‘Is there any way we can do this? Is there any way?’” Kelleher said of the past four years. “And at the end of the day, it was always, ‘We just can’t.’ We just couldn’t do it. Guys would come up. He wanted to try and see if we could, and at the end of the day, ‘We just can’t, Billy.’

“But he’d always say, ‘I can’t wait to be aggressive when we can be.’ Like, we’d see these moves — (Tampa Bay Lightning GM) Julien BriseBois would make these aggressive moves, where he gives away picks, and Billy would always say, ‘We’re going to be there someday.’ He couldn’t wait to make his first big swing.”

Kelleher said that week when the Wild made their pitch for Hughes — Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren and a 2026 first-round pick — was a stressful wait-and-see game.

“Because you just didn’t know,” Kelleher said. “It would be like no updates, and then you’d get an update, ‘Yeah, we’re still in it. We’re still in it.’ I remember I was walking out of TRIA (the team’s practice rink) the one morning, and Billy called me and goes, ‘I think we’re the front-runners right now.’ I went to St. Cloud that night to scout, and he called me on the way, and he’s like, ‘We got him.’

“Our first offer was our best offer. And I think that was the big difference. We didn’t know if New Jersey or maybe Detroit would outbid us, but Billy didn’t want to mess around. He wanted to make our best offer first. But it still never seemed it could be real until that morning.”

Kelleher has been pro scouting for the Wild for 17 years. He knows the sport, but even he couldn’t appreciate just how much Hughes would transform the Wild’s overall game.

“I’ve always known he’s a good player, but when you see him on your own team, it’s just different,” Kelleher said. “You see him every night, you see how he impacts the game, every shift, every play. The way he controls the game, it just impacted all our players on our team. I think he just lifted the whole franchise to a different level. We have really good players like Kirill, (Matt) Boldy, (Joel Eriksson Ek), (Brock Faber), but getting a superstar like Quinn Hughes, who is arguably top two in the world, it just changes your team.

“Plus, he just puts it at a different level. Guys look at Minnesota as a destination now.”

That’s already proven true, with Brady Tkachuk and Dylan Larkin having the Wild on their short lists of teams they were willing to be traded to this offseason. Guerin won’t be able to rest on his laurels, though. This is an important offseason as he tries to trade for a No. 1 center (he’s still after Larkin), add top-six wingers and extend Hughes’ contract despite again finding cap space extremely tight.

But at least for one night Thursday, Guerin got to celebrate with his staff, which includes assistant GMs Mat Sells and Mike Murray, and family.

“Billy’s best attribute or asset is that he puts people in positions to do their job and lets you do it,” Kelleher said. “And he relies on those people and uses you in your abilities. So between the three assistant general managers, we all have different roles and different specialties. When he wants to talk about a hockey player, he’ll call me. If it’s a contract thing, he will call Mat. If it is a budget or a staff contract thing, he will call Mike.

“Same with the amateur guys, the development guys, the coaches. He lets you do your job. And if you’re doing a good job, he’ll let you know that. And if you’re not, he’ll tell you, ‘We’ve got to be better here, and we’re gonna do this.’ He makes people feel welcome and included and involved, and he wants everybody’s opinions. He makes you want to work harder for him. And he wants to win. He wants to do whatever it takes to win.

“I really think this is just the beginning.”