Former Minnesota Wild GM Paul Fenton had made several controversial deals during his 14 months in office. He traded, among others, Nino Niederreiter for Victor Rask and Mikael Granlund for Kevin Fiala in a one-for-one. That's not even mentioning the $30 million contract he gave to 31-year-old Mats Zuccarello for the next five years.
Before losing his job, it looks like Fenton was about to make another mistake. According to Michael Russo, who covers the Wild for The Athletic, Fenton was about to trade veteran Zach Parise. While that might not seem like such a bad thing (the Wild have been looking to move Parise's $9 million a year cap hit) according to Russo's sources, the return would have been "disastrous" and the Wild would have been forced to retain salary. Russo is not willing to name the return involved in the trade out of respect for the players and his source.
-
The owner of the Wild, Craig Leopold, acted in time before another disaster occurred. Fenton was fired as GM of the Wild on July 30th of this year.
The organization named former player and assistant Penguins GM Bill Guerin to the position Wednesday afternoon.
