The Minnesota Wild missed out on the playoffs this past season, and will be somewhat resetting their salary cap situation with the money from buying out Ryan Suter and Zach Parise's contracts for the most part coming off of the books, but general manager Bill Guerin still expects his team to compete for the Stanley Cup this upcoming season.
“My expectations are to get back into the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup,” Bill Guerin said, according to Kayla Douglas of theScore. “I think there are some teams that are in a rebuild or whatever, but we are not. The one thing that really hurt us last year were injuries. If we can stay healthy, we can get back to our 100-plus-point seasons and get back into the playoffs and improve on what we've done.”
This upcoming season, Suter and Parise will count for $14.74 million in dead cap for the Wild, which drops to $1.67 million a year from now. This past season was the first time that Minnesota missed the playoffs since 2019, and Guerin certainly expects his core of players to be able to get back to the playoffs at least, based on his comments.
“Players have bad years, coaches get fired, teams miss the playoffs. That happens. The big thing is is that we bounce back,” Guerin said, according to Douglas.
Bill Guerin's approach to 2024-2025 Wild season
Despite the big dead cap number, Guerin is approaching this season ready to win in Minnesota.
“We're trying to win,” Guerin said, according to Douglas. “We've got some salary-cap obstacles, but you know, I think we have performed well under the situation that we put ourselves in. I'm looking forward to id, but… I'm not like, ‘Oh my God, we'll just wait till next (year).' No, we have this year.”
Why does Guerin believe the Wild will be contenders this year? He expects players to perform to their career norms.
“What we need is the guys that scored 10 (goals) but usually score 20 to get back to 20,” Guerin said, according to Douglas. “(Marcus) Johansson's got to have a better year. (Frederick) Gaudreau's got to have a better year. (Matt) Boldy has to have a better start. (Kirill) Kaprizov has to have a better start. (Ryan) Hartman can have a better year. … Foligno, if he can stay healthy, we need him in the 15-20-goal range.”
Next offseason could be an active one for the Wild, but they are focused on the season ahead.
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