New Wild GM Guerin: 'We have a lot of work to do'

Bill Guerin is ready to get down to business as the new general manager of the Minnesota Wild.

The 48-year-old was officially introduced as Minnesota's fourth GM in franchise history Thursday and conceded he's going to be a busy man with training camp opening in less than a month.

"We have a lot of work to do, but there's a ton of potential and I'm extremely excited to get to work," Guerin said, according to NHL.com's Jessi Pierce. "There's everything here to win. Everything. I've seen it as a player, I've seen it in management as far as what it takes to build a winner. ... Everything is in place.

"This is a good team. My job is to make it better, and we are going to build."

Minnesota finished last in the Central Division in 2018-19. It marked the first time the club has missed the playoffs in six seasons and resulted in the firing of former GM Paul Fenton after only one year at the helm.

Guerin didn't lay out a full-staged plan on how he'll revitalize the Wild but did say he'll rely heavily on analytics - something Fenton admitted to not being fully on board with after he was hired in 2018.

"I'm all-in with it. ... It's another way to look at what's going on," Guerin said, according to Michael Rand of the Star Tribune. "The more information you can have, the better. We were extremely big on it in Pittsburgh."

Guerin was hired by the Penguins as their player development coach in 2011 and was promoted to assistant GM in 2014. He won two Stanley Cups while with Pittsburgh's front office and also won two rings as a player during his 18-year career.

Minnesota's 2019-20 roster is almost entirely in shape, save for restricted free agent Kevin Fiala. Guerin has $7.9 million in available cap space to get a deal done, according to Cap Friendly.

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