‘F— that’: Wild’s Guerin refuses to blame injuries for recent slide

It’s easy to point to a host of injuries to explain why the Minnesota Wild have slid in the standings in recent weeks. It’s also a premise rejected by Bill Guerin, general manager of the Wild.

“No, fuck that. Fuck that,” Guerin told Michael Russo of The Athletic. “You can be low on energy and still play well. You’ve got to use your head. You know what? Everybody’s tired. Everybody has a condensed schedule. Everybody has injuries. Everybody in the league has what we have. There’s no excuse whatsoever for any of this.”

Guerin sounded off following a recent seven-game stretch by the Wild in which the club has found the win column twice while allowing a combined 27 goals, second-most league-wide during that two-week period, behind only the dead-last San Jose Sharks.

The sixth-year GM also criticized his team’s lack of response Sunday against the Calgary Flames, zeroing in on an incident that saw Flames rearguard Rasmus Andersson punch Wild netminder Marc-Andre Fleury with little retribution in return by the Wild.

“[Andersson] had his way with us,” Guerin told Russo. “Like, it was not fun to watch, I’ll tell you that. The funny thing is that’s not who this group of players is. It’s really hard to figure out, but we’re [going to] figure it out … I was disappointed in last night and have been too many times lately.”

While Guerin refuses to point to the high level of activity on the team’s injured reserve in recent weeks, it is worth noting that several key Wild skaters have missed time this season, including superstar left winger Kirill Kaprizov, who recently returned from a 12-game absence due to a lower-body ailment, as well captain Jared Spurgeon, who missed a nine-game stretch through late January because of a lower-body injury of his own. The Wild also remain without defensive-minded rearguard Jonas Brodin who has been sidelined for the past nine games and limited to 31 total appearances this season.

Standing atop the NHL standings in mid-December with a 19-5-4 showing, the Wild have skidded to 29-17-4 and stand only two points ahead of the Colorado Avalanche for third place in the Central Division. The Wild have a chance to return to the win column when the club retakes the ice Wednesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.