Bill Guerin loses Olympics role, will instead focus on steadying Wild, playing in Winter Classic

Our conversation was supposed to be about doing two jobs at once. I had several questions for Bill Guerin, including: When do you take off your Wild general manager hat and put on your U.S. Olympic team GM hat?

Guerin, last week, was named to lead an all-NHL Olympic team to play in Beijing in February. Part of this interview was to grill Guerin about getting Wild goal machine Ryan Hartman onto that team.

But ... "One hat is put in the closet," Guerin said.

Wednesday's decision by the NHL and the players association to pull out of the Beijing Olympics because of COVID concerns effectively ended Guerin's role with the team. The job has become substantially more involved now because the globe has to be scouted, foreign leagues have to be scoured and college players have to be considered as part of a restructured Team USA that will replace the NHLers. Doing that and running the Wild is not practical.

What was your favorite moment of Guerin's USA Hockey management stint? Mine: The news release. He enjoyed his brief time in the role, although as Team USA assistant general manager, he basically had been in charge since GM Stan Bowman resigned on Oct. 26.

"Trying to juggle the two teams was an experience of its own," Guerin said. "One of the more enjoyable things was talking to some of the players, putting together a completely separate coaching staff and utilizing guys who had done it before."

Guerin, a three-time Olympian himself, knew of the players' concerns about the Beijing Games, but he said the movement to pull out accelerated over the past two weeks. Fifty NHL games have been postponed during the nation's new virus surge. The league is citing that number of postponements as a main reason why players won't be going to Beijing. And the league has paused its regular season until next week.

Players expressed concerns about ending up in a quarantine facility for as long as five weeks if they were to test positive while at the Olympics.

"It would have been a great thing for our game to have all the NHL players go," Blackhawks center Jonathan Toews told reporters on Tuesday. "But from what I'm hearing, and my personal opinion as well, is that the players are going to put their own health and their own families and their own clubs' situation as priorities ahead of going to Beijing and dealing with some very unpredictable scenarios. So to me, that's the right way to go about it."

I don't blame him. As a vaccinated and boosted media member who's preparing to cover his first Olympics, I would like more clarification on what happens if I test positive while in Beijing as well.

Guerin will now turn all of his focus to a Central Division-leading Wild team that has lost its past four games and is looking to get healthier. Forward Jordan Greenway is expected to have recovered from his lower-body injury in time to play in Monday's scheduled game against Winnipeg. Jared Spurgeon is still out with a lower-body injury. And center Joel Eriksson Ek is expected to miss "weeks" with his upper-body injury, Guerin said.

Some within the organization are wondering if the Winnipeg game also will be postponed to help ensure that the Wild will be able to participate in the Winter Classic at Target Field against St. Louis on New Year's Day. The Winter Classic has been a smash hit since its inception in 2008 and is a premier event on the league's calendar. What would be a better way to kick off the New Year after the league was forced to press pause on its season?

"[The NHL] puts a big importance on it," Guerin said of the Winter Classic. "It's a target date. It gives everyone a significant amount of time off. Maybe we can get a few things under control, and I think it's a nice way to reboot the season."