Minnesota Wild reward coach John Hynes with a multiyear contract extension entering his 4th season

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota Wild coach John Hynes signed a multiyear contract extension Tuesday after leading the team to its first playoff series win in 11 seasons, continuing a long-running relationship with general manager Bill Guerin.

With Hynes in the final year of his previous deal, Guerin made it a priority to give him some more security before the regular season and reward him for his work over the last three years.

“There’s a lot of different parts to having success, but having a head coach who’s dedicated, puts the work in, and has good relationships with his assistants, with management, and most importantly with the players, it’s critical. I would categorize John as elite in all of those departments,” Guerin said in a news conference at the team's practice facility, two days before training camp begins.

The ability to effectively communicate and motivate within the locker room, Guerin said, is one of Hynes' greatest strengths.

“Very rarely raises his voice. Doesn’t need to. But he’s very direct, very firm when he needs to be,” Guerin said.

Terms of the contract weren't disclosed by the Wild, who beat the Dallas Stars in six games in the first round of the playoffs last spring and lost in five games to the Colorado Avalanche in second round after matching the third-most regular season points (104) in franchise history.

“It's an awesome group to coach,” Hynes said. “You’re hoping you can continue to build with what’s going on because of the environment that’s here.”

Hynes, who was hired 19 games into the 2023-24 season after Dean Evason was fired , is in his 12th year as an NHL head coach. He’s 125-78-24 with the Wild and 409-333-87 in 829 regular-season games, including runs with the New Jersey Devils and the Nashville Predators. He’s fourth in league history among U.S.-born coaches with 409 wins, trailing Peter Laviolette, John Tortorella and Mike Sullivan.

Guerin and Hynes worked closely together in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization, when Hynes coached the Wilkes-Barre farm team in the American Hockey League and Guerin worked in player development before moving his way up in management. They've also got many shared experiences with the U.S. national team, including last winter when Guerin was the general manager and Hynes was an assistant coach on the gold-winning team at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

“There’s a personal friendship that goes back 30 years, but the working relationship is really good. The belief in the same things that can bring you to success, to winning, is the same,” Guerin said. “We talk about everything from the team to individual players to messaging, and we see things very similarly.”

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