[Report] Wild fire GM Paul Fenton

[Goal:thecup]

16 hours ago, Silver Ghost said:

Minnesota needs their owner to stop thinking they are a contender. If ever a team needed to be stripped down to the studs and rebuilt, its the Wild. Too bad Fenton got garbage for all their tradable assets except Zucker.

Minny can stay effed up as far as I'm concerned.

[theo5789]

21 hours ago, Silver Ghost said:

Minnesota needs their owner to stop thinking they are a contender. If ever a team needed to be stripped down to the studs and rebuilt, its the Wild. Too bad Fenton got garbage for all their tradable assets except Zucker.

With Parise and Suter still signed for an eternity, they really have no choice but to remain competitive because if they tried to go full rebuild now, they will have those guys still under contract only older, so unless they want to have a rebuild that lasts more than 6 years they have to keep pushing on.

 

They have the pieces and they need to add the right pieces moving forward as they have sort of become like the stale core of the Canucks. I think they'll simply have to keep trying for maybe 3-4 more seasons before deciding to blow it all up or not.

[mll]

Leipold says his phone has not stopped ringing with interested candidates.  Ron Hextall is believed to be the lead candidate.  Last time the runner up was NJD's AGM Fitzgerald.
 

 

Edited August 1, 2019 by mll

[Silver Ghost]

17 hours ago, mll said:

Leipold says his phone has not stopped ringing with interested candidates.  Ron Hextall is believed to be the lead candidate.  Last time the runner up was NJD's AGM Fitzgerald.
 

 

I actually struggle to see how Hextall would be a good fit. He was basically fired for wanting to build slowly by adding young players to the team.

 

Minnesota just fired a GM after one year and in doing so basically said they want to stay competitive not rebuild. That doesnt scream ownership patience.

[King Heffy]

What they need is a guy honest enough to tell Leipold that the team needs to be blown up and undertake a full rebuild.  Parise and Suter have brutal contracts, but a new CBA might have another compliance buyout window.  Given the amount of teams with bad contracts, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some solution there.  Brian Burke as president with someone like Brackett as the GM would be the ideal outcome there.  Entirely possible Burke isn't interested, but it's pretty clear some kind of experienced executive needs to act as a buffer there.  Their core is not good enough and will not be good enough when compared against the rest of the league.

[mll]

13 hours ago, Silver Ghost said:

I actually struggle to see how Hextall would be a good fit. He was basically fired for wanting to build slowly by adding young players to the team.

 

Minnesota just fired a GM after one year and in doing so basically said they want to stay competitive not rebuild. That doesnt scream ownership patience.

 

Fenton got fired for his poor leadership skills.  He wasn't fitting into their culture.

 

Leipold insisted it was not the trades that got him fired.  Leipold asked him to shake up the core and they've been trying to get younger.

 

This is Leipolds's interview here:  

https://www.nhl.com/wild/video/craig-leipold-on-gm-change/t-277437412/c-68673403

 

 

11 hours ago, King Heffy said:

What they need is a guy honest enough to tell Leipold that the team needs to be blown up and undertake a full rebuild.  Parise and Suter have brutal contracts, but a new CBA might have another compliance buyout window.  Given the amount of teams with bad contracts, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some solution there.  Brian Burke as president with someone like Brackett as the GM would be the ideal outcome there.  Entirely possible Burke isn't interested, but it's pretty clear some kind of experienced executive needs to act as a buffer there.  Their core is not good enough and will not be good enough when compared against the rest of the league.

 

Parise and Suter have recapture contracts.  They cannot retire early without the Wild facing considerable cap penalties - trading them increases their penalties in case of an early retirement.  They also both have NMCs.  Minnesota has one of the best top-4 in the league when everyone is healthy.  Suter leads the league in TOI.  Parise is a heart&soul player and was their top point producer last season.  His work ethic is tremendous and sets the standard for their young players.  

 

They've already started getting younger and have identified their future core.  Those players are just as young as the Canucks' core.  Donato, Fiala were drafted the same year as Virtanen.  ErikssonEk, Greenway, Kaprisov in 2015, Kunin in 2016.  Rask is not a core player and was a poor return for Niederreiter but he was drafted the same year as Miller.  

Their future core guys haven't broken out yet and need more time to develop and Leipold knows that:

 

From his conference after the firing: 

"We're really not going to know for three years [how the players will pan out] because of the trades that occurred. They're Paul's responsibility and I will say we've got some young, talented players that we picked up on some of these trades. I'm excited about where they can go, and three years from now, we may look back and probably say these were the best moves made, hard to tell. But this move was not because of the trades. 

 

The success of the team will depend on those young players taking the next step.  Parise is not particularly thrilled that they are going through a rebuild.  Whether that was the mandate or not - they are in effect rebuilding but call it a retool.  Granlund, Niederreiter, Coyle were core players. 

Fenton complained that Fletcher had traded too many picks away and it left a gap - he made it a priority to re-stock their prospect pool.  He talked about how they had to build a strong farm system so that there is competition and that push from below to become contenders.  They've added players through free agency but that only costs cap space and mostly tried to get younger through trades.  

Hextall, like Fenton, believes that you have to develop young players in a winning environment.  They are not going to just hand the keys over to young players but they are getting younger.

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by mll

[mll]

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Edited August 2, 2019 by mll

[Ghostsof1915]

On 7/31/2019 at 4:21 PM, aqua59 said:

This owner has guts.

But no brains. He should have fired him after the draft.

Or better still demoted him to an assistant/or in scouting. 

Not sure how firing him helps the team. They now need a new GM. Who's going to have to examine the team to see what he's got. 

Basically next season is a write off. 

[Ghostsof1915]

On 7/31/2019 at 9:23 PM, theo5789 said:

With Parise and Suter still signed for an eternity, they really have no choice but to remain competitive because if they tried to go full rebuild now, they will have those guys still under contract only older, so unless they want to have a rebuild that lasts more than 6 years they have to keep pushing on.

 

They have the pieces and they need to add the right pieces moving forward as they have sort of become like the stale core of the Canucks. I think they'll simply have to keep trying for maybe 3-4 more seasons before deciding to blow it all up or not.

So basically Minny is Vancouver when Benning took over. 

[theo5789]

17 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

So basically Minny is Vancouver when Benning took over. 

Pretty much, but I think they're in a bit worse with the Parise and Suter contracts. But they do also have more youth coming in already. They're doing that transition to players around 23-24 range in hopes of a quicker turnaround, so we will see if they can make it happen, but they might just get to the point where they have no choice but to blow it up.

[aqua59]

6 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

But no brains. He should have fired him after the draft.

Or better still demoted him to an assistant/or in scouting. 

Not sure how firing him helps the team. They now need a new GM. Who's going to have to examine the team to see what he's got. 

Basically next season is a write off. 

More brains that you. You're not an NHL executive. 

[Brad Marchand]

There's some downright hilarious stuff in this Athletic article: https://theathletic.com/1112113/2019/08/02/the-downfall-of-paul-fenton-inside-the-gms-turbulent-14-months-with-the-wild/

It's behind a paywall, but people have posted samples of what's in it:

Quote

“There were a number of people inside the organization who were worried that over that month leading into the trade deadline Fenton became too singularly focused and “obsessed” with getting Fiala, whom he feels could become a game-breaker. It apparently took some convincing from his staff to keep Fenton from giving up more than Granlund and even retaining salary.

“There was just frustration beyond comprehension,” a source said.

To land Kevin Fiala, Fenton traded an established 50-plus point player in Mikael Granlund. Fiala is only 23, and the Wild hope he can develop into a player that will make that trade a win in the long-run.

Fenton was proud of his one-for-one “hockey trade,” but very rarely in the NHL is a known quantity like Granlund traded for an unproven player without getting another asset back. It sure sounds like Fenton’s old mentor, David Poile, strung him along for a month to the point that Fenton thought he was getting a steal when Poile finally agreed.

“David knew he had him and played mind games with him all the way to the deadline,” a league source said.”

Quote

Still, Paul Fenton was so sensitive to the way Leipold perceived his son, when he found out Leipold was sitting to his right at the draft table on Day 1 in June, sources said, he quickly rearranged the seating chart to move his son two seats to his left and put Yopyk immediately to his left so Leipold didn’t feel P.J. was running the table.

Quote

"3) Throughout the month of February, The Athletic reported that he was pursuing Fiala in a deal that could involve Granlund. He was convinced people in his front office were leaking the info. When The Athletic broke the news that Coyle was traded to Boston right before the team’s flight to New York, Fenton, sources say, was white-hot on the team plane and spent the ride trying to find out if anyone onboard leaked the info, going as far as threatening jobs.

4) When The Athletic reported Parise would miss the final two games of the season after dealing with a broken foot and a sprained MCL and torn meniscus after being kneed by Washington’s Tom Wilson, Fenton was enraged, demanded to know our sources, called Parise and even had a conference call with Parise’s agents to try to figure out who revealed the info."

Quote

a game Fenton wasn’t at because he was on a scouting trip that also allowed him to attend the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl parade. Fenton, sources say, sent video of the parade to several in the organization, something that really irked many during such a precarious time. Fenton being away during crucial times was a continual theme. After the trade deadline, during a critical part of the season with the Wild struggling and the calendar turning to March, Fenton went to his home in Florida for three weeks. This past offseason, he spent most every day in Florida or Cape Cod, including leaving Minnesota July 2 — the day after free agency began.

Also a bonus from the author's podcast:

Quote

According to one of his sources, they told Russo that Fenton was not aware of how if you retain a percentage of a player's salary in a trade that you need to retain it across the entire contract and not just the year that the trade was done. He was so in on Fiala that he openly considered retaining some of Granlund's salary just to make sure the trade would happen until people explained to him how salary retention worked and talked him out of it.

Think this solidly answers the question 'Why was Paul Fenton fired?'

Edited August 3, 2019 by Brad Marchand

[Alflives]

7 minutes ago, Brad Marchand said:

There's some downright hilarious stuff in this Athletic article: https://theathletic.com/1112113/2019/08/02/the-downfall-of-paul-fenton-inside-the-gms-turbulent-14-months-with-the-wild/

It's behind a paywall, but people have posted samples of what's in it:

Also a bonus from the author's podcast:

Think this solidly answers the question 'Why was Paul Fenton fired?'

Love you crying Marchand pic.  

 

I think this could be propaganda leaked by the Wild to take some heat off their ownership for firing their GM after they just hired him. 

[mll]

^

So much damage done behind the scenes according to Russo.  Probably even worse than the much criticised trades.  Key employees dismissed or leaving.

 

He took titles away and/or tried - demoted important employees to lesser roles.  Tried to fire Boudreau a handful of times with Leipold refusing - probably explains why that end of season presser with Boudreau/Fenton was so awkward.

 

Appointed his son and his limited experience (2 years with Edmonton as amateur scout per eliteprospects) to run the amateur scouting department.  The list of concerns is pretty long.

 

[mll]

4 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Love you crying Marchand pic.  

 

I think this could be propaganda leaked by the Wild to take some heat off their ownership for firing their GM after they just hired him. 

Russo covered those issues throughout the season in his podcast - well before Fenton got dismissed.  

[Alflives]

1 minute ago, mll said:

Russo covered those issues throughout the season in his podcast - well before Fenton got dismissed.  

Maybe those “issues” were leaks from the ownership because they knew they made a mistake hiring Fenton, and were making firing the guy so quickly after hiring him, more palatable for their fans?  I mean these issues with Fenton make Chia Pet look like the second coming of Sam Pollock.  

[mll]

2 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Maybe those “issues” were leaks from the ownership because they knew they made a mistake hiring Fenton, and were making firing the guy so quickly after hiring him, more palatable for their fans?  I mean these issues with Fenton make Chia Pet look like the second coming of Sam Pollock.  

Fans wanted Fenton gone for a while.   Doesn't make much sense to leak those issues - hurts the team and it's credibility.  Lots of damage done behind the scenes.  

[Alflives]

Just now, mll said:

Fans wanted Fenton gone for a while.   Doesn't make much sense to leak those issues - hurts the team and it's credibility.  Lots of damage done behind the scenes.  

Fenton sounds like he was to the Wild for one year what Tortorella was to us for his one year.  The difference is we got a second round pick from CBJ (unbelievably) after firing our lunatic.

[Grape]

On 7/30/2019 at 1:17 PM, Art Vandelay said:

I agree with this choice. But also confused they waited until after free agency, and multiple bad trades.

Firing a GM after 1 season almost never happens, so in this case it's better than firing him later.

 

But yeah, if you were going to fire him this Summer there was probably a better time to do it.

[Grape]

1 hour ago, Alflives said:

Fenton sounds like he was to the Wild for one year what Tortorella was to us for his one year.  The difference is we got a second round pick from CBJ (unbelievably) after firing our lunatic.

I mean Torts is doing just fine with CBJ so I don't think they really regret giving up a second round pick.