Potential choices for the new Minnesota Wild head coach

The Minnesota Wild will have a new head coach in the 2020-21 season. It will be the first major hire for general manager Bill Guerin, who himself just joined the organization late last summer.

There’s still this season to play out before Guerin needs to conduct a search, but here’s a few names which might come up in the process (listed alphabetically):

Tim Army: If Minnesota might be looking to going younger, perhaps the head coach of the Iowa Wild would make sense. Army led Iowa to the AHL playoffs last season and is well on his way to doing that again in 2019-20. He and Guerin have even crossed paths in the past. Army was an assistant in 2017-18 for the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins, a team whose general manager was Guerin. Also, when Guerin played for Boston College from 1989-91, Army was an assistant coach at Hockey East rival Providence. However, while Army has been an assistant with Washington and Colorado, he’s never been a head coach in the NHL and his pro head coaching experience is limited to his nearly two years with Iowa and three with Portland from 2002-05.

Mike Babcock: Whenever there’s a job opening there’s sure to be speculation around a coach who has won a Stanley Cup. Babcock did just that with Detroit in 2007-08. He also took the Red Wings to the Finals the next season, although they lost to a Pittsburgh team which included Guerin. Babcock most recently was with Toronto, who he guided to the postseason in each of the last three seasons. However, he was fired this year and accused of “verbal attacks” against Maple Leaf players. Babcock has a good coaching resume but this recent issue which came to light might be a tough sell.

Clark Donatelli: There’s a connection with Guerin as Donatelli was the head coach at Wilkes Barre/Scranton from 2015-19, which coincided with Guerin’s time as GM. The AHL Penguins won the regular-season title in his first full season as head coach in 2016-17 and made the playoffs three of his four years. However, Donatelli stepped down after the 2018-19 season for “personal reasons” and who knows if he’d want to get back into coaching. He does have a Minnesota connection as well, having played in 25 games for the North Stars during the 1989-90 season.

Dean Evason: Guerin has said the Wild’s interim head coach will get a look to keep the job on a permanent (well, as much as any head coaching job is permanent) basis. Evason obviously knows the team, having been hired as an assistant in 2018-19. Previously he coach Milwaukee in the AHL for six seasons, making the playoffs in four of those and having a winning record in all six. Evason has no previous NHL head coaching experience – he was an assistant with Washington from 2005-12 – but will get a trial run until the end of the season with the Wild. Making a good impression could go a long way. Evason, though, wasn’t brought to Minnesota under Guerin’s watch and the Wild GM might want his own man in charge.

Gerard Gallant: Perhaps no one represents how quickly things can change for an NHL head coach than Gallant. In 2017-18, he led the expansion Vegas Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Finals. Less than two years later he was fired after 49 games (the Knights were 24-19-6 at the time). Gallant also has been the head coach of Columbus and Florida. Like his time in Vegas, he was fired in his third season with those teams. Maybe that’s a pattern? Gallant was an assistant coach for the New York Islanders in 2007-08 and 2008-09, teams on which Guerin played.

Peter Laviolette: Another Stanley Cup winner, in his case with Carolina in 2005-06. Laviolette also took Philadelphia (2009-10) and Nashville (2016-17) to the Finals. In his long coaching career he has a points percentage of 58.8% with four divisional first-place finishes. Of course, he’s also been fired a few times as well: three years after winning the Cup in Carolina, three games into his fourth year after taking the Flyers to the Finals and this season, three years after the Predators made the Cup Finals, after 41 games.

Doug Weight: Weight and Guerin are longtime friends and that kind of thing often holds a lot of – sorry about this – weight. The two have known each other since before both entered the NHL. They played together on the Oilers, Blues and Islanders as well as U.S. Olympic teams. Heck, their families have vacationed with each other. But can you hire that good of a friend who likely someday (I mean, see above and pretty much the history of every NHL franchise) you might have to fire? Weight took over as the Islanders head coach midway through the 2016-17 season (he has been an assistant since the 2011-12 season) and led them to a 24-12-4 record. New York went 35-37-10 the next season and Weight hasn’t coached since.