Wild GM Bill Guerin: 'If I sound a little pissed off or annoyed, I am'

Bill Guerin, fed up with rumors in the media, went off during a Twin Cities radio appearance.

Minnesota Wild General Manager Bill Guerin let his emotions spill onto 100,000 watts of radio, telling KFAN's Dan Barreiro: "This is a big boy life and this is a big boy world and if you can't take it, then tough."

Guerin bashed the reported drama about the goalie situation between Marc-Andre-Fleury and Cam Talbot, and then got "pissed off" defending Matt Dumba, who played through serious injuries in the playoffs. 

"If I sound a little pissed off or annoyed, I am."

Was Talbot angry about being benched for the first five games of the playoffs? Absolutely, Talbot said as much. But Guerin called anything other than that "petty BS" in the media.

"To be quite honest with you, I'm not worried about it. Yeah, Cam's a great guy, he's played great in net for us. We love Cam. He's coming back. He's under contract, we want Flower (Fleury) back. I'm not worried about this stuff," said Guerin. 

"Like I said when we got Flower, I'm not into all this petty BS that people want to get into. We're trying to win. We're trying to win hockey games, we're trying to win championships. That's it. You know what, we're all big boys here. This is a big boy life and this is a big boy world. And you know what, if you can't take it, then tough."

Asked if it was "reasonable" for coach Dean Evason to keep Talbot on the bench until Game 6, Guerin defended the decision. 

"That's their job. Reasonable thing is the coaches make decisions and the players show up to play. And when you get the nod, whether to play in goal or to go on the power play or to kill a penalty, that's when you play. And it's your job to show up and play as well as you can. We got that from Cam Talbot. There's no issue," Guerin said.

After the Wild bowed out to the Blues in six games, there was a lot of talk about Talbot and the Wild needing to repair their relationship. Talbot's wife also made headlines by criticizing Evason for saying it was an "easy decision" to go with Fleury over her husband. 

"You know what, I talked to Cam. Things are fine. Hey look, like I said, this is a competitive world. This is not like middle school or high school where we're talking about all these little things. This is the real world and tough decisions are made and not everybody is going to be happy with them, but you're expected to perform and we believe we have people that can deal with that stuff, and Cam Talbot being one of those," Guerin explained. 

Dumba/Fiala situation

While Matt Dumba was playing through a punctured lung and broken rib, Kevin Fiala no-showed in the playoffs, looking like a shell of the player who scored 85 points during the regular season. 

"I think he's a damn good defenseman and people want to write him out of town just because Kevin [Fiala] had three good months."

Fiala, a restricted free agent, is likely going to require somewhere around $5-$7 million annually to return to the Wild. But Minnesota is salary cap-strapped because of dead money from the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts, so retaining Fiala likely comes at the cost of losing Matt Dumba or Jonas Brodin. 

And Guerin doesn't sound ready to part with Dumba. 

"Why is it always Dumba? Dumba plays a lot of minutes for us," he said. "There are a lot of things that Matt Dumba does really well. Everybody has their shortcomings. Kevin didn't do well in the playoffs but we're all dying to keep him."

"We might not be able to keep Kevin. We might not be able to keep Matt. I don't know, but we're going to make our decisions," Guerin added. 

Then the Wild GM blew off some steam. 

"If I sound a little pissed off or annoyed, I am. Because all I hear is Matt getting kind of dumped on and you know what, it's not easy doing what he did, playing in the condition he did. I like Matt Dumba. I think he's a damn good defenseman and people want to write him out of town just because Kevin had three good months."

Guerin ended his 25-minute interview by warning fans to be careful who they believe. 

"If you're not talking to me or somebody in my hockey ops department, you're not getting good information. They have no idea what they're talking about," he said, referring to some media. "They are full of crap."