Toronto Maple Leafs: Ranking All 32 NHL General Managers
By Jeff Borsuk
The 17th Ranked GM – Bill Guerin (Minnesota Wild)
The Minnesota Wild made a wise move to hire Bill Guerin as their franchise’s fourth general manager. Guerin has won a pair of Stanley Cups as the Assistant General Manager of the Penguins. He also won two of them as a player, one with New Jersey and the other with Pittsburgh. Minnesota is Guerin’s first chance to prove that he’s ready to be an NHL GM. So far, he’s been in the role since August of 2019.
The Good – Guerin has been busy trying to elevate his team into a title contender. One deal he made that significantly helps the franchise is dumping one of his predecessor’s bad contracts. Guerin swung a deal that sent Jason Zucker to the Penguins, relieving the Wild of his $5.5M cap hit that would have been on the books until the completion of the 2022-23 season.
This wasn’t just a good trade, it was great. In exchange for Zucker, Guerin received a 2021 first-round draft pick, WHL prospect Calen Addison, and Toronto Maple Leafs reclamation success, Alex Galchenyuk. Pittsburgh wanted out from Galchenyuk’s contract but since it expired at the end of the 2019-20 season, it made a lot of sense for Guerin to take him.
Guerin needs to also be commended for managing to lock up his team’s captain, defenseman Jared Spurgeon. In September of 2019, he was signed to a massive seven year contract worth $53.025M. Spurgeon will be under team control until at least the end of the 2026-27 season.
The Bad – In an attempt for the Wild to bolster their roster and pick up draft picks, Guerin swapped centers with the Predators. Going to Minnesota was Nick Bonino who would be there as a one year rental to hopefully help the team once they made it into the playoffs.
While Bonino did have a solid regular season, he disappeared in the playoffs, registering no points in the Wild’s seven game series against the Golden Knights. In exchange for Bonino, the Preds managed to pry away center, Luke Kunin. The 23 year old looked great playing in just his fourth NHL season. Kunin went to Nashville along with a fourth round pick in last year’s draft, which the team used to select 2020 4th Adam Wilsby.
Even though Bonino didn’t play up to expectations and can potentially walk as an unrestricted free agent this summer, this was a bad trade for Guerin but not a terrible one. He also managed to wrangle a pair of picks in the 2020 draft out of Nashville. Minnesota received a second-round pick, which they used to take Marat Khusnutdinov and a third-round pick, with which they selected Eemil Viro.