The Minnesota Wild have locked in general manager Bill Guerin on a multi-year extension, ESPN’s Emily Kaplan reported Tuesday afternoon.
Guerin, 55, has been running the show in Minnesota since 2019, and the results have been steady. Under his watch, the Wild have made the Stanley Cup Playoffs in six of seven seasons. Their 2026 run ended in the second round, where they lost to the Colorado Avalanche in five games.
Minnesota’s 2025-26 season had plenty of notable moments, and the front office was right in the middle of them. The Wild finished third in the Central Division with a 46-24-12 record and 104 points in 82 games. They also made two major headlines: signing star winger Kirill Kaprizov to a record-breaking eight-year, $136 million contract last September, then landing star defenseman Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks in December.
Guerin took over after Paul Fenton following the 2018-19 season. Before that, he spent eight seasons in the Pittsburgh organization in a variety of roles, closing out his playing career there in 2010. He also won Stanley Cups with the Penguins as an assistant general manager in 2016 and 2017.
As a player, Guerin built a long NHL resume. The 6’2″, 220-pound winger skated in 1,263 games across 18 seasons with the New Jersey Devils, Edmonton Oilers, Boston Bruins, Dallas Stars, St.
Louis Blues, San Jose Sharks, New York Islanders, and Penguins. He finished with 429 goals, 856 points and 1,660 penalty minutes, plus 73 points in 133 playoff games.
He won the Stanley Cup with the 1995 Devils and the 2009 Penguins.
With Guerin now secured beyond 2026-27, Minnesota has handled most of its major offseason business. The Wild also extended head coach John Hynes, traded for veterans Blake Coleman and Olli Maatta, re-upped Michael McCarron and Bobby Brink, and signed free agent winger Maxim Shabanov.
The one major item still hanging out there is Hughes. The 2024 Norris Trophy winner is entering the final year of his current contract, and no extension is in sight.
In Other News...
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There is at least one new carriage deal in place, with Spectrum cable announced as part of the launch, but the rollout still comes with real uncertainty for a wide swath of viewers. The NHL is still negotiating with other providers to get Wild+ distributed more broadly, and there are no agreements yet with Comcast Xfinity or DirecTV, leaving plenty of households waiting to see whether theyll have an easy way to watch the Wild this season. [Read more 🡒]
Wild Brought In Olli Maatta For A Problem They Still Must Fix
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Mtt has already sounded comfortable with the shorter training camp and has pointed to the value of defense and penalty killing as the kinds of details that can help steady this team. Minnesota is looking at him mostly as a defensive piece, not a scorer, which makes his fit fairly straightforward in theory. The real question is whether the Wild can turn that intent into a cleaner penalty kill and the kind of reliable structure they still need. [Read more 🡒]
Matt Boldy May Be On Verge Of A Much Bigger Wild Role
Matt Boldy is already past the point of being just another promising young piece for the Wild. After a career year with 42 goals and 85 points last season, he enters this year with the kind of momentum that tends to change how a team looks at its depth chart, especially for a player who has also raised his profile through international play and in the postseason. For Minnesota, the conversation around Boldy is no longer about potential alone, but about how much more responsibility he can handle.
The early signs point to a bigger role, with the Wild considering him for the second line and leaving the door open for shifts to the top unit alongside Kirill Kaprizov. Head coach John Hynes has already hinted that Boldy could see more opportunities as the season unfolds, which makes him one of the more interesting pieces to watch in camp and beyond. If that usage grows the way the organization seems to believe it can, Boldy may be on the verge of becoming much more than a strong scoring winger. [Read more 🡒]