Stick to the Plan

To understand the here and now of the Minnesota Wild you have to first step back in time, step back to a moment in the executive offices of the hockey club almost two years ago.
In the days leading up to the 2021 expansion draft, entry draft and free agency, the Minnesota Wild were in the midst of seismic changes.

The team had opted to buy out the contracts of veterans Zach Parise and Ryan Suter in spite of the significant salary cap penalties that would come with such a move.
Already, observers were wondering what kind of step back the bold moves would mean for the evolution of the team.
On a quiet afternoon in late July, GM Bill Guerin stood in a boardroom adjacent to his office and stared at a white board filled with the names of players at all levels of the organization. The names represented the future of the team.
Quietly, as if to reassure himself, he whispered just loud enough to be heard; 'Can't mess up the plan. Can't mess up the plan.'
I wrote at the time: Mantra? Prayer? Promise?
Almost two years later, as the Wild prepare for its 9th playoff appearance in the last 10 seasons, it appears as though Guerin has been true to those whispered words.
"Whatever your team is, it has to have some sort of understood identity," long-time player and one of the game's most astute analysts, Ray Ferraro, said in a recent interview.
"And if it doesn't, that means everybody's pulling in a different direction and that never works," said Ferraro who at one point lived with Wild head coach Dean Evason when both were making the jump to the NHL with Hartford. Ferraro didn't necessarily have a specific vision for the kind of team Guerin would build after being named Wild GM late in the summer of 2019.
"But I was certain they would have a bit of a rough edge identity," Ferraro said. "I kind of felt that was the way Billy played and you don't completely change your view going from player to management. And through Bill, and then when they made the coaching change to Dean, it kind of fit."
Fit is a word thrown around often in the hockey world.
The reality is you might believe there is a fit, and you can certainly hope there is a fit, but you don't know until you know. It strikes at the very heart of team-building, the path between vision and execution and the critical nature of belief.
It is a path the Minnesota Wild have traveled quickly. And it is a path that has earned the team quiet praise around the NHL from executives who routinely describe the Wild as one of the best-prepared teams in the NHL.
"I just love the way they play," said one long-time NHL player and executive. "They play it hard and they're hard to play against."
Things like identity and fit aren't achieved by putting up sayings on the wall.
They are achieved by having people with a shared vision throughout the organization from top to bottom and side to side. That vision has to be clearly articulated and it has to be firmly defended even if it means people's feelings might get hurt along the way.
"I think the big thing is, we're extremely, I don't want to say brutally honest, but we are honest with the guys," Guerin said.
"They want that," said Guerin who won two Stanley Cups as a player and two more as an executive in Pittsburgh.
At the time of this conversation Guerin is sitting in the back of the coaches' room in Nashville. There is a sense of purpose as the staff prepare for the regular season finale with a playoff series against the Dallas Stars looming in a few days.
"If you're out of the lineup, one of these guys will talk to them and tell them exactly why. And it might just be a simple thing, there's nothing, you're just not playing tonight," Guerin said. "Or, you were not very good last time and we've talked to you (about it). Like, when Matt Dumba and Ryan Hartman were out, we were honest with them. And they've done the work and they've fixed it. They trusted us and they believed in it and we were honest with them. I just think that goes a long way with the guys. They don't want to be lied to."
As affable a person as Guerin is, it would be foolish to mistake his kind nature with being a pushover. During meetings with his hockey ops staff Guerin is quick to rein in discussion and to make it clear when it is time to move on from a topic. And just as Evason has the final word over coaching decisions in spite of a collaborative spirit within the coaching staff, Guerin isn't afraid to make the hard call when it comes to hockey ops decisions.
In short, you never have to wonder where you stand with Guerin and that is at the baseline of the team's dramatic shift in culture.
"That's how I always liked to be treated and that's how I'm going to do it," Guerin said. "I don't know any other way to do it. I'm a terrible liar. You can ask the guys. I do talk to the players. I do talk to the coaches. And I cannot lie to them. It's not going to help anybody and I suck at it."
Since the Wild shocked the hockey world by advancing to the Western Conference Final in 2003, the team has won two playoff series. The '03 run marked the only time the team has advanced beyond the second round.That is the yin to the yang of making the playoffs in nine of the past 10 seasons. Getting there is an achievement, never doubt that, but that can't be the goal.
And the truth of the matter is that winning playoff series is about trusting the process not hoping the process works.
Maybe it's a subtle distinction but it's one that this Wild team has embraced wholly.
Sometimes it's hard to illustrate what that belief looks like. Sometimes it's easy.
On the night of the Wild's last regular season game it was announced mid-game that Frederick Gaudreau had signed a five-year, $10.5-million contract extension. He celebrated the news by scoring two goals to bring him to 19 on the season. The 29-year-old had scored a total of 19 goals in his entire career before the start of this season.
Gaudreau could have taken his breakout season and gone to the open market as a free agent this summer. His skill set as a complete two-way center would have made him an attractive quantity. But he didn't go that route and it sounds like he never really considered it.
"No brainer for sure," the well-liked Gaudreau said. "My heart is here. I felt like home the first day I got in Minnesota. More than that I believe in this group big time and that's really important to me. I believe in this group we have, such a solid group. I believe in the culture. It's good people first and then good players."
There are no guarantees that having such a belief and creating the kind of identity that is visible on a daily basis with this Wild team will earn you a Stanley Cup. It doesn't work that way. But what is almost certain is that if you don't have those things, if you don't have belief, identity, culture, you have no shot.
And at the end of the day isn't all that anyone wants is a shot at the dream?
"I'm very proud of the way that this group has come together the last couple of years," Guerin said. "To be quite honest with you I think the whole organization has worked really hard the last few years to get the Minnesota Wild to a different place. We do have a good culture. We do have a team first mentality and again this has been a huge group effort and everybody's bought in because all we want to do is win."
"You want to come to a place of work every day that is supportive, that is serious, that's fun and you know you're going to get better," Guerin added. "And you're going to get pushed. But I think as a player that's what you want. You want direction. You want to trust in your leadership, your coach, your GM, you want to trust in them. I think the players do trust us. We work at it. We work at it really hard."