Today Bill Guerin met with the media to give his state of the team report following the first round seventh game defeat in Vegas.

It was a far more upbeat message from the Wild GM this time around vs the one he delivered nearly 10 months ago after the Wild had a quick exit from the bubble in Edmonton. This time around their are far more positives to draw on as the process is in full motion to make the Wild a championship contending team.

There are many tasks on Guerin's plate this off season with three key RFA contracts that need to be negotiated. Kirill Kaprizov heads that list of course along with Kevin Fiala and Joel Eriksson Ek. Those deals take precedent prior to addressing the other roster needs.

Once those are sorted out it will tell the tale of how much money is available to make the necessary upgrades or if they can resign either Ian Cole or Nick Bonino.

Guerin spoke of how both Cole and Bonino were instrumental in the changing of the culture within the Wild locker room and how both would be valuable pieces of the puzzle to return. That said they would have to be willing to take significant pay cuts if that is remotely to be considered.

Guerin stopped short of committing to going out to upgrade the center position saying that this season proved that they can compete with wings driving the offense. To me that success was limited when it came to matching up with Colorado, Vegas, and even St. Louis so that may be overstated a bit if that is truly how Guerin feels.

The league may have changed as Guerin said but there is still no substitute for having true playmakers to set up the two best scorers on the team. Kaprizov and Fiala would absolutely have more goals had they been playing with legitimate top line centers rather than Victor Rask and Ryan Hartman.

Either way the off season will be one of activity as the expansion draft is upcoming along with the entry draft, where the Wild hold multiple first round picks. Free agency is right after that along with what to do with some of the players on the Wild roster currently.

The Zach Parise situation was addressed by Guerin and Dean Evason. Guerin and Evason talked about the number of discussions that they had with Zach throughout the season and the playoffs and how his playoff performance was inspiring. They both made the same statements that they have to make hard decisions that are not always popular, but at the end of the day they are trying their best to win hockey games and not making anything personal. The results that they got from Zach when he returned to the lineup were what they would have expected to see from a pro like Parise. He did not elaborate on how or what the future plans were with Zach but he has 4 years left on his deal.

Gonna be some changes coming as the process moves forward...

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