No rush for the Wild
Michael Russo: The Minnesota Wild will likely be doing behind the scenes homework/research on their next potential GM for the next week. They will continue to do phone interviews and no decision is imminent.
Don’t believe they will make a decision until later this month.
Elliotte Friedman: The Wild were denied permission to speak with New York Rangers assistant GM Chris Drury.
The Rangers have twice denied a team to speak with Drury. The Buffalo Sabres were the other.
Dan Rosen of NHL.com: (mailbag) The Wild should look at bringing in a GM who has been working as an assistant, someone to bring in some new and fresh ideas.
Things have become a little stale in Minnesota, and “they need someone who can work with the players on the current roster because making major changes this late into the offseason is unlikely and nearly impossible, but also able to instill his way of thinking, his authority and his culture. They need a modern approach and more excitement.”
Candidates who may fit this and who have been tied to the Wild are Bill Guerin (PIT), Tom Fitzgerald (NJ), Norm Maciver (CHI), Scott Mellanby (MTL) and Mark Hunter (ex-TOR).
Hurricanes owner doesn’t see Waddell leaving
Tom Gulitti of NHL.com: Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon doesn’t think GM Don Waddell is going anywhere.
“Yeah, I expect Don to be the GM of the team for a while,” Dundon said Wednesday.
Waddell doesn’t have contact with the Hurricanes as it expired at the end of June. Dundon doesn’t understand why there are contracts for employees on the business side of things.
“To me, he’s employed by the Carolina Hurricanes,” Dundon said. “He’s employed and he’s not going anywhere as far as I’m concerned. So the whole contract thing, I don’t understand it. … I have found this weird since I got into the hockey business that the business people all have contracts. I never had contracts with the people that worked for me. It was just, ‘If you do a good job (and) I like you, you’ll work here, and I’ll treat you fair.'”
