Minnesota Wild to hire Bruce Boudreau

The Minnesota Wild have landed Bruce Boudreau’s signature, beating out the Ottawa Senators in the process.

Despite heavy interest from the Ottawa Senators, it’s the Minnesota Wild who will have the honor of getting coached by Bruce Boudreau next season. TSN’s Darren Dreger was the first to report it before the Wild confirmed it themselves:

The Wild fired Mike Yeo in midseason and had assistant coach John Torchetti take over in the interim. Despite guiding the team to the playoffs, Torchetti was always going to get replaced next year, and Boudreau was the perfect replacement.

It’s a wonder how the Senators didn’t land his signature, since all the talk surrounding Boudreau’s destination next season was around them. It couldn’t have been a money issue since, according to Elliotte Friedman, his contract in Minnesota comes out to roughly $3 million over the next four years:

And the Wild are practically up against the cap. However, between Ottawa and Minnesota, the latter has been to the playoffs more consistently, and their window to win the Cup is closer than Ottawa’s.

Boudreau got fired from Anaheim because of a disappointing first-round exit, but that shouldn’t take away from how great of a coach he is. He took the Ducks to the Conference Finals just the year before, and led them to a Pacific Division title this year after they were a bottom-five team at one point this season. The division title is his eighth in nine years of coaching, and the Wild must be glad that they have him now.

With seasoned vets like Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, as well as younger players like Matt Dumba who can become franchise cornerstones, Boudreau will have a lot of good pieces to work with, and it won’t be shocking to see the Minnesota Wild become legit Cup contenders within the next few years.

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