ST. PAUL -- When Ben Boudreau and P.J. Fenton hit the links recently in Fort Wayne, Indiana, it's safe to say the subject of hockey came up in the conversation.
Ben, the assistant coach of the Fort Wayne Komets, is the coaching son of Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. P.J. Fenton, a Fort Wayne resident, is a scout for the Edmonton Oilers and oldest son of new Wild general manager Paul Fenton.
It was the first ever meeting of people from the two hockey-crazed families that will aim to bring a Stanley Cup to the state of Minnesota in the seasons to come.
Boudreau, Fenton each took long road to top NHL gigs
New GM and his coach now begin work of building a consistent winner in Minnesota
"We talked hockey and growing up in a hockey family," Ben Boudreau told Wild.com on Tuesday, the day the older Fenton was
introduced as the third GM in team history
. "He's a good guy and it seems eerily similar to me and my dad."
Indeed, the family dynamics do appear to resemble each other.
Bruce Boudreau toiled in the minor leagues as a player and paid his dues as a coach, working his way from the lower levels of the pro ranks until becoming an NHL head coach for the first time at 53.
He passed on his love of the game to all three of his sons. Ben's Komets are in the Western Conference Finals in the ECHL playoffs, and the 33-year-old is seen as an up-and-comer in the coaching world.
Paul also played a few hundred games in the minors and began his management career as a scout, working his way up from there, to chief pro scout, to director of player personnel and assistant GM before finally getting his first chance to run an organization at 58.
After a four-year college career and a brief run in the AHL and ECHL, P.J. Fenton embarked on a career in Europe as a player before retiring and moving into hockey operations, serving as a scout for the Oilers.
"I think by hole four, he had figured out who I was and I had figured out who he was," P.J. Fenton said. "He seemed like a really good guy. I know their team [in Fort Wayne] is doing really well, so I don't think the apple has fallen too far from the tree with him and his dad.
In the coming days and weeks, the focus will shift to Bruce and Paul and how these two hockey lifers can learn to co-exist. The two played against each other as players in the minor leagues and are certainly familiar with each other's résumés, but the duo has never worked together in the past.
That will change now, starting with dinner on Tuesday night when the two will begin to map out a course forward as the Wild aims to, not only return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for a seventh consecutive year next season, but find a way to reach new heights once it gets there.
Their shared grind to the top is certainly one thing they have in common and something Boudreau said he immediately respects about Fenton.
"You know hockey is in his blood," Boudreau said. "I talked to him last night and I told him, 'I was 53 before I got an opportunity to coach in the NHL. You've persevered and you're in your 50s as well.' I just think it's a great thrill for him and I'm looking forward to working with him."
For Fenton, the feelings are mutual. The longtime assistant general manager of the Nashville Predators has witnessed from afar the 503 wins Boudreau has been a part of as head coach of the Washington Capitals, Anaheim Ducks and now with Minnesota.
In Boudreau's two seasons here, Minnesota has earned at least 101 points, only the third and fourth times in franchise history the Wild has crossed the century mark.
In Boudreau's first year with the club, the Wild had a team-record 106 points.
"Bruce is a very, very successful coach and has been, so what we're going to work on, the two of us, how are we going to get to the next level and how are we going to integrate everybody that we have here," Fenton said. "That's the most important thing, me building a relationship, him starting to learn to trust me, to trust what I'm going to see and look at certain things."
Boudreau is certainly open to a new set of eyes, something Fenton will provide. The winningest coach (by percentage) in NHL history, the one thing that has eluded Boudreau during a hockey career that has spanned more than four decades is a Stanley Cup.
"You look at our team and you look at Nashville's team and they're very similar, and very similarly built," Boudreau said. "Nashville is a four-line team, we're trying to make ourselves a solid four-line team. They've got their big four defense, I think we have our big four defense. They've got a great goalie, we've got a great goalie. You add all of those things up, and I think there's just tweaks that have to be made."
"Tweaks" seemed to be the word of the day at Fenton's press conference. When Wild owner Craig Leipold announced the team would not renew the contract of former GM Chuck Fletcher last month, he said he believed a complete overhaul was not needed.
Interviews with several highly qualified candidates and a number of conversations with Fenton have done nothing to alter that belief.
"Unanimously, they recognize we are a team that is just missing a piece. Making the playoffs six years in a row tells you a lot about our team. We're a damn good team," Leipold said. "We just need to maybe get to the next level, the next step, and what does that take? Hopefully Paul is going to help us to get to that point.
"The interviews that we had, Paul was the one we felt was most experienced. The people I spoke with about Paul could not in any greater terms that wanted to win greater than Paul wants to win and will work harder to do it."
Having himself paid his dues to get where he is, Boudreau isn't afraid of a little hard work. It's how he shed the label as "interim" head coach with the Capitals after ascending to the NHL the first time.
It's how he's managed to win more than 500 games in the best league in the world.
And it's how he and Fenton will together, they hope, build a consistent winner in Minnesota.
"You're only here to win," Boudreau said. "Whatever Paul thinks we should do to improve this team, that's what we're going to do. We're not going to sit still. Whatever he decides to do, I'm going to run with, but I think in the end, we both go to bed at night wanting to win the Stanley Cup. And it just eats away at us when we're watching these last four teams go at it."
