Things are hot in Minnesota right now. No snow and temps in the mid-50’s in December. The Timberwolves are tied for the best record in the NBA, 23 games into the season and Wild President of Hockey and General Manager, Bill Guerin, perhaps is feeling the heat from a spotlight in which he usually isn’t under. Reports from earlier this week stated that Guerin was being investigated for verbal abuse in the workplace. This of course, was 24 hours after long-time assistant GM, Chris O’Hearn reached a “mutual agreement” to part ways with the club. Co-incidence? Maybe, but doubtful.
The investigation began after an internal complaint was filed with the team’s Human Resources department. After hiring an external law firm to conduct an investigation, Guerin was found to not have committed any “fireable offense.” Perhaps, if there was a rift between Guerin and O’Hearn, that was the final straw. Often described as Guerin’s right-hand man in the past and a critical piece to leading the team through its salary-cap hell in order to sign free agents and re-sign its players, O’Hearn definitely has made an impact on the team since joining the team in 2019 as its Director of Hockey Operations.
What makes the move so surprising, is that O’Hearn served as the lone front office representative during a recent road-trip to the west coast. Maybe Bill was mad because O’Hearn didn’t bring back some fresh seafood from Seattle. Then again, the two situations may be entirely coincidental in timing as the team stated. Stranger things have happened – you read about the T-Wolves, right?
Whatever the case may be, the Wild will miss O’Hearn’s mathematical genius-ness. As for Wild Bill, it appears as though he will have some extra elbow room in the GM suite at the X for the near future.
The team itself has seemed to right it’s ship after former Head Coach, Dean Evason was shown the door. It’s really too bad, because as we often see in sports, the head coach always takes the fall. Personally, I think Dean was a great coach, but it seems as though he had lost the team, and something needed to change. Though it may seem nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, the tenure of the likeable coach came to an unfortunate end.
Damn, that’s a whole lot of front office talk. Since new head coach, John Hynes took over for Evason, the Wild have been 6-2 in their previous eight games. Though many people were critical of Hynes before he was even in Minnesota based off his previous record, the change was evidently the spark that the team needed.
Change isn’t always easy, be it in hockey or any other aspect of life, but getting a different perspective and different message can turn things around and hopefully helps the team create some magic. Seeing as their record is now 11-12-4 and they’re still in second-to-last place in the Central Division, the Wild have a long way to go to get into the playoff race. The Wild next take on the Vancouver Canucks at the X on Saturday afternoon beginning at 1PM on NHL Net.
Though we may not have any snow in December or many W’s in the win column, rest assured Wild fans, they will come. Oh yes, they will come. Go Wild!!!!
The Morning Skate 