Bill Guerin was named the fourth general manager in Wild history on Wednesday, and in the process he joined an impressive club: top executives or head coaches of Minnesota pro teams who had strong playing careers.
Here is a ranking of the 12 current or former head coaches or general managers of the Wild, Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Lynx and Minnesota United — who held those jobs within the last 25 years — who had the best playing careers:
1: Paul Molitor: The former Twins manager is a Hall of Famer with 3,319 hits, good for 10th all-time. He cranked out 225 of those hits for the Twins in 1996, the year he turned 40. He also hit .418 in 13 career World Series games.
2: Kevin McHale: A Minnesota and former Gophers great like Molitor, McHale, the former Wolves GM and interim head coach, was named one of the NBA's 50 greatest players of its first 50 years. He scored 17,335 points with the Celtics and won three NBA titles.
3: Jacques Lemaire: A Hall of Famer just like the first two members of this list, Lemaire had 835 regular-season points and another 139 (in 141 games) in the postseason with Montreal, where he won eight Stanley Cups in 12 seasons. He was, of course, the first head coach in Wild history.
4: Bill Guerin: The new Wild GM scored 20 goals in a season with an NHL-record seven different teams and finished his career with 856 points in 18 seasons. He is a two-time Stanley Cup winner and was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013.
5: Adrian Heath: Minnesota United's head coach had a brilliant playing career and was a key member of the Everton clubs that won English Premier League championships during the 1984-85 and 1986-87 seasons. He finished with 120 career goals, including 91 in the first division.
6: Doug Risebrough: The former Wild GM was Lemaire's teammate in Montreal and won four Stanley Cups of his own there. He finished his career with 185 goals and 471 points between Montreal and Calgary.
