Former Wild Assistant GM On Building A Franchise From Scratch
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Tom Lynn is a lawyer, but first and foremost, he's a hockey guy.
He's worked for the Wild as Assistant General Manager, and now as an agent. Along the way he penned a book on what it was like to build an NHL franchise from scratch.
In just their third year on the scene, the Wild made it to the Western Conference finals, and haven't been back since. So was their early success a blessing or a curse?
"Curse," Lynn answered. "A blessing for us, who experienced it, a curse for the franchise, because there was such a plan in place to build slowly, to get better over time so that you have momentum."
Lynn was the Assistant GM at the time, and found the process of building a team to be fascinating. He says working alongside head coach Jacque Lemaire brought instant credibility to the early team.
"Jacque meant detail, commitment, culture," Lynn said. "It's pretty difficult for a team with the right culture to lose consistently."
In Lynn's book, How to Build an NHL Franchise From Scratch: The First Era of the Minnesota Wild, he says there is no one key to a successful franchise.
"People think, 'Oh, you just get that player,' or 'you just get that GM,'" he said. "No. There's 20 things or more that are all important, and yes, to varying degrees. The more of them you get right, the better off it is."
Lynn is now an agent, spending most of his time watching high school and amateur hockey. He says the biggest challenge is keeping those top high school players in their home state, playing for the hometown team. He compared the local teams to the volatile global economy.
"High school hockey is in a very good position, with the players it's produced in the last three or four years," he said. "But, like Yahoo and Google, it only takes 18 months to be out of kilter, and I think the people of Minnesota hockey know that, and they have a lot of urgency in the way they do business."