Will changes at the top be able to get the Minnesota Wild over the hump?
The Minnesota Wild and owner Craig Leipold announced today that their General Manager for the last 9 seasons, Chuck Fletcher, will not be back. His contract was due to end after the season so they’ll just let him go and they’ll begin the search for a new GM immediately.
Being one of only three teams to make the playoffs in the last six straight seasons wasn’t enough to keep Chuck Fletcher the GM of the Minnesota Wild. That might seem wrong but just making the playoffs isn’t & shouldn’t be enough for the players or the fans and, the Wild might be lucky to have an owner in Craig Leipold that doesn’t think it’s enough, either. He wants his team to win a Cup for the deserving fans of the State of Hockey.
For whatever reason, the Wild have struggled in the postseason. For the first three of those six straight postseasons, the hump they couldn’t get over was the Chicago Blackhawks. The last three seasons, the hump has been getting past the first round. They’ve met a hot goalie, a hot team or a combination of both that has ended their season. Two of those teams won the Stanley Cup, if that matters and no, that shouldn’t matter, either.
It’s hard to blame the GM but, he is the man who ultimately built the team. It was Chuck Fletcher’s team so if his teams couldn’t win, it was time for him to go and for the Minnesota Wild to make a change to that philosophy and the best way to build a team. Chuck Fletcher deserves respect for building this team through a combination of the NHL Draft, Free Agency and through trades.
Were all his moves successful? No. Of course not but neither are all the moves from every GM in the National Hockey League. He did sign both F Zach Parise & D Ryan Suter to huge 13-year/$98M contracts in 2012. Without those deals, they don’t make the playoffs for 5 of those 6 seasons. He traded a 3rd-round pick for G Devan Dubnyk. Without that trade, they miss the playoffs that season and who knows about the following seasons.
A lot of fans question Fletcher’s trades & giving up so many draft picks but you have to give up something to get something and it seems the price is going up and probably why he didn’t make any big moves at this season’s trade deadline.
He also spent to the cap this season. That’s a good thing. It means he’s using every possible dollar he can to field the best team possible. He can’t predict injuries, especially all of the weird injuries the Wild had this season.
The bottom line is the teams Chuck Fletcher built each season didn’t get it done. You can say the blame shouldn’t all fall on him but he’s responsible for the teams he built. The hockey operations he built can only put a team together that they think can get the job done. Unfortunately, if they don’t develop into what they thought they could be and don’t get the job done, they then have to figure out both what to do with them and how to fix them.
It will be extremely interesting to see who the Minnesota Wild bring in to succeed Chuck Fletcher as the next General Manager and who that GM decides needs to go. In our opinion, every player should be on the table in trade talks as a means of improving this team so they can finally go on a run for The Cup.
The only player we can see as being “untouchable” is F Kirill Kaprizov, who is currently in the KHL through the 2019-20 season. There is no agreement between the NHL & the KHL so there is currently no way to get Kaprizov to the Minnesota Wild before then. He’s the type of player the Wild has rarely seen put on their jersey. Will that be when this team gets over the hump and has some playoff success? Well…hopefully, it will be sooner than that but…
It will be up to the players and the new GM to get them to that point.
We’ll be going over the Minnesota Wild’s season and previewing the offseason over the next couple of weeks so follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram and let us know what you think and always….
