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What Does Fenton Provide For Boudreau To Work With?

June 21, 2018, 1:29 PM ET [3 Comments]
Dan Wallace
Minnesota Wild Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
With the news that the Islanders and Barry Trotz are closing in on a deal, that has to make Bruce Boudreau feel a bit more comfortable in his position.

Boudreau should have no reason to feel that his position was ever in question given the team's record over his first two seasons behind the Wild bench. But with a new GM the obvious place to focus is the head coach whom he inherited, and given the Nashville ties of both Paul Fenton and Wild owner, Craig Leipold, Trotz created some serious intrigue.

Coaches are always judged on results, in particular results in the postseason. Up until this season Barry Trotz was a very good NHL coach with a long resume of building playoff teams, but never having much success in the playoffs.

Sound familiar? Of course it does because that is exactly what the record shows for Bruce Boudreau as well.

Coaches are unfairly criticized for losing and often times too highly praised when they finally do win. The fact is there are 31 teams in the NHL and only one gets to hoist the big prize at the end of each season. The object is to get to the dance and if the chips fall right and the team comes together while remaining fairly healthy, they may just have a shot at winning the hardest trophy in all of professional sports.

So bringing in Barry Trotz would just be a move for change for the sake of change, rather than an improvement over the current head coach, who is absolutely one of the league's best.

The interesting thing for me moving forward with the Fenton/Boudreau tandem is how Fenton transforms the team to a Boudreau team rather than the Chuck Fletcher team that Bruce inherited.

In other Wild news there are rumors flying all around about several players, but the one team that is intriguing is Edmonton. Matt Dumba has been mentioned as well as names like Oscar Klefbom and Milan Lucic, as well as the Oilers first round pick, number 10 overall. Now there is no rumor that specifically details the structure of any deal with Edmonton so by no means am I saying that it would be three pieces for one.

Peter Chiarelli has a history of making some very suspect moves, and if Fenton plays his cards right the Wild may just be the recipient of the Edmonton GM's next gaffe.

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