Minnesota Wild: Closing the Book on the John Torchetti Era

When the Minnesota Wild hired Bruce Boudreau as Head Coach it signaled the end of the John Torchetti experiment as the Wild decided not to hire Torchetti as the fourth coach in team history.  As the Wild move forward possibly without Torchetti in the organization it could be a harder pill to swallow than most think.

On February 13th the Minnesota Wild, after a lack luster performance at home against the Bruins were deep in the throes of an eight game losing streak.  So bad was the loss that GM Chuck Fletcher decided at the final horn of the game that he would fire head coach Mike Yeo.  The Wild found themselves out of a playoff spot and wondering if the season was lost with no chance to get back into the playoff picture.

Enter John Torchetti to take the helm of the team with a mandate from Fletcher to coach the team as he saw fit.  Stepping up from the head coaching role in Iowa, Torch was ready to and familiar with the line-up.  From the beginning Torchetti began to reach out to the players and set expectations for how players should play.  The Wild learned how to play hockey the John Torchetti way.

The result of Torch’s way was that the Wild regained the last playoff spot in the Western Conference and made something out a Wild season that was about to be called due to lack of effort.  Sure there were stumbles and streaky play by the Wild, but ultimately Torchetti made this underperforming team preform again.

The playoffs gave us more of the same.  Continued streaky and inconsistent play that ultimately became the team’s downfall against the Stars.  Still throughout it Torchetti challenged his team, while staying positive on their outlook and his confidence in them.  You can argue whether the team responded or ignored their coach, but you cannot question the effort of Torchetti to right the ship.

After the season ended it seemed like he had a big chance to finally land his first full-time head coaching position in the NHL.  GM Chuck Fletcher called him “a serious candidate” for the full-time position at his end of the season press conference, and added that he wanted to hire a coach who would keep the players accountable.  Torchetti certainly did that and was well on his way to building a solid culture of accountability.

Everyone left Fletcher’s end of season press conference thinking it would be a very deliberate process to find the next Wild head coach.   He was quoted by Michael Russo of the Star Tribune as saying this of his plans for the coaching search “the process is taking shape and next week we’ll start to have better ideas about how it will go, but I’m not in any rush.”

Fletcher did start slow as he interviewed Torchetti formally and former Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle early in the preceding week.  At this point it looked like Torchetti still had a very good shot at making it back with the Wild.  Then the Ducks fired Bruce Boudreau and things changed.  Almost instantly it seemed that when Boudreau came on the market the Wild lost focus on anyone else and went all in on the former Capitals and Ducks coach.

In an interview with NHL Network’s Jamie Hersch Boudreau described it as a “crazy week”.  He met with Fletcher the Tuesday after he was fired and was given an offer to coach the Wild for a hefty sum of $3 million a season on that Friday.  It took Fletcher just over three days to make a decision that he once said he was not in a rush to make.  It was clear he or owner Craig Leipold though Boudreau was the missing piece and they had to have him…quickly.

To sum it up bluntly, Torchetti never had a chance once Boudreau came on the market.  Did Torch get a fair shake at being the fourth head coach in franchise history?  That’s a harder question to answer, but one thing is for certain the way it went down crushed him.  Fletcher told Chad Graff of the Pioneer Press that when he broke the news of Boudreau’s hiring to Torchetti “The conversation with John was hard, he was disappointed. He certainly wanted to be the head coach of the Minnesota Wild, and that’s what drives him.”

Many would say that while Torchetti did a great job getting the team turned around, the best option for the team was to hire Boudreau.  That might be true, but Boudreau brings his own set of baggage with him to the Wild.  But perhaps the largest impact the Wild might not be obvious.

Not only did Torchetti turn around a struggling Minnesota team, he had turned around Iowa before that.  Granted that Iowa still has not setting the AHL on fire, but it can be said the culture and the development in the team has been taken up a huge notch.  Fletcher put it best when he said “I thought Torch and Cunny did a great job down there changing the culture, putting the structure in.”

The second order effect of bringing Torchetti up to Minnesota and not making the new full-time head coach is that the Wild now have put the development system that Torchetti has created in Iowa in jeopardy.  There’s no guarantee that Torch will return to his former post in Iowa, and now it looks as if he won’t.  That hurts more than most people might realize, as a result Iowa and the Wild’s player development will take a huge hit.

Next: Fifteen Greatest Minnesota Wild Players: #15 Pavol Demitra

So as we close the book on the John Torchetti era, it just seems like as Boudreau comes in all people see is the shiny new coach that will lead the Wild to new heights.  If you look a little closer, you’ll see the disappointment and likely loss of a solid teaching coach in John Torchetti.  It’s exciting to see what Boudreau will do with the team, but you can’t help but wonder if the Wild are as better off now without Torchetti in the organization.