Ray Shero used to say one of the hardest phone calls he ever had to make in his two stops as general manager was letting Bill Guerin know after a 21-goal season in 2009-10 that the Pittsburgh Penguins wouldn’t be re-signing him.
There was immense mutual respect between the two, and Shero had thrown Guerin a lifeline in acquiring him in 2009 from the New York Islanders to be one of the final pieces for an eventual Stanley Cup champion.
“He changed my life,” a very emotional Guerin, now general manager of the Minnesota Wild, said Wednesday morning after the team announced that Shero, who was a senior adviser for the Wild the past four years, had died at 62. “My career was fizzling out. I was not on a good team, and that trade just brought so much joy to my life. And winning the Stanley Cup with Ray, and then him giving me my start in hockey operations, he literally changed the direction of my life.
“I was forever grateful for that. And he did that for so many. You can go down the line — Jason Botterill, Tom Fitzgerald, Patrik Allvin, Jarmo Kekalainen, Randy Sexton. He helped all these guys. That’s what he did. That’s … what he did.”
Guerin’s tears then turned to chuckles.
“We went through it a million times, and we had laughs about it, with our whole staff in Pittsburgh,” Guerin said. “Literally, most of the guys — maybe all of them on the staff — didn’t think I had it anymore. And Ray went out on his own and did the trade anyway because he believed in me. And that changed my life. It changed my life.”
Guerin, like so many in hockey, was touched, influenced and made to feel like gold with Shero’s infectious personality, wise words and hilarious sense of humor. He considered him one of his biggest mentors.
The Minnesota Wild is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Ray Shero. pic.twitter.com/9mqkjaR5ms
— Minnesota Wild PR (@mnwildPR) April 9, 2025
Guerin said Shero died in Arizona after a brief illness. Not many in hockey knew he was sick.
“I just don’t really think he wanted to burden too many people with this,” Guerin said.
Even Guerin didn’t know the extent of what Shero was going through until the last minute.
“This came incredibly fast,” Guerin said.
Few, if any, on the Wild staff knew. Shero opted out of coming to Vancouver last month to sit in his customary chair to the right of Guerin during the trade deadline, but he worked the January amateur scouting meetings in Florida and was always a phone call or text away, even as recently as last weekend.
“He was the best, most supportive person and one of the biggest mentoring role models I had in the organization. He was a true confidant,” Wild director of amateur Judd Brackett said. “He wasn’t just involved in the draft. He was so encouraging in everything we did. The biggest thing that comes to mind with Ray is just the generous spirit. He was always positive, always wanting to share information, was always curious what you’re doing — but not just professionally. Like you’re family.
“I’m terrible with names. Ray remembered everybody’s name the first time. Like, my wife walks in, and it’s immediately, ‘Hey, Lucie!’ Like how the hell does he remember that? Guys he’d see once a year he’d know their spouses’ names. He just engaged you and made you feel like he wasn’t above you. He was just a good person that way.
“But he had so many good things about him. Like, he probably doesn’t get credit for being as progressive of a thinker professionally as he was. He was a big proponent of wanting Aaron Bogosian to come in and do character assessments for us. That’s an out-of-the-box thing that not everybody in hockey wants. But he didn’t just care about the work — but the people he worked with and their extended families. I had to call each of our amateur scouts today, and everybody was devastated because he had a rapport with every one of us.”
Statement from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the passing of Ray Shero. https://t.co/gdpsf8TYgQ pic.twitter.com/eRJTudg5Si
— NHL Public Relations (@NHLPR) April 9, 2025
When Guerin wasn’t re-signed by the Penguins, he was hoping for one last shot at playing. He’d sign a pro tryout with the Philadelphia Flyers. But toward the end of camp in 2010, Guerin got word that he was being cut.
“I was done,” Guerin recalled. “My first call was to (wife) Kara to tell her that I had been let go and I’m going to retire. My very second call was to Ray Shero. I told him what had gone on in Philly and that I didn’t make the team and I wanted to come in and talk to him about the next stage of my life.
“I was in Pittsburgh three or four days later sitting down with him.”
Shero hired Guerin in player development, launching a career in management that would ultimately land Guerin in Minnesota as the head honcho. But before he hired him, Shero wanted to gauge how serious and committed Guerin would be to putting in the time and energy to work.
Shero wanted to make sure Guerin wouldn’t have half a foot in.
“The scariest thing, to him, was a former player who wants a paycheck and an office and doesn’t want to do the work,” Guerin said. “And he laid it out for me how this business works and what it will require to have success. And those words are gospel for me, and I live by them, and I try to pass it on to other former players because I really do think it is the foundation for success.”
That’s why in June 2021, after Shero spent a year out of hockey after being fired by the New Jersey Devils, Guerin called Shero to ask him to join the Wild as a senior adviser.
“I remember thinking, ‘We’ve got to get Ray back in the game. The game needs him. The game’s better with Ray in it. And we, being the Wild, need him,’” Guerin said. “I’ve always loved Ray. It was the right fit. It was the right time. There weren’t many things that I did that I didn’t run by Ray. He always sat next to me at the deadline, and that was our agreement when he came. He had already done so many things in the game. He had already been GM of the Year, won a Stanley Cup. I mean, he’d done everything.
“So our agreement was he could be in any rink he wanted to — NHL, American League, amateur, Beanpot, whatever — do the things that made him happy and where he feels he could help me the most. But the most important thing was if I called, pick up, which he always did. Or if I text, text back, because if I’m calling or texting, it means I need his wisdom and experience.”
Shero was proud to come full circle and work for the Wild. He was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., in 1962 when his dad, the legendary Fred Shero, was coaching the St. Paul Saints. Shero lived in White Bear Lake, Minn., for the first four years of his life.
Guerin said Shero had his paws in several Wild decisions and that the Marc-Andre Fleury trade from Chicago in 2021-22 would not have happened “if Ray didn’t pull me aside and give me some sound, sound advice.”
Mike Yeo, the former Wild coach who is now an assistant with the Ottawa Senators, was on Pittsburgh’s staff when the Penguins won the Cup in 2009. It was Shero who encouraged him to leave the Penguins to become head coach with the Houston Aeros in 2010 — a move that propelled Yeo’s coaching career.
Yeo coached the Aeros to the Calder Cup final before becoming the third coach in Wild history.
“I still remember my first time ever meeting Ray and having a little bit of uncertainty whether I was going to stick around or not,” Yeo said, laughing. “But right from the start, he was unbelievable to me. And not just to me, but also to my family. That’s one thing that’ll always stick out is he did such an unreal job of creating a culture of making a young assistant coach feel important, and having a voice, but also the importance of family. And our kids were always around. Our wives were always at dinners. He created a real family-like atmosphere.
“Even though I was a younger assistant coach, when we had pro scout meetings, when we had year-end evaluation meetings or training camp decisions to make, I was very much included in all those. Ray made you feel like you had a voice. And I think that’s part of what made him so successful. He also surrounded himself with good people, from Fitzy to Billy Guerin or Chuck Fletcher. The list goes on and on. You could write pages and pages of stuff just from quotes of people that he’s helped along the way.
“I am so grateful to him. The things that I’ve accomplished with my career wouldn’t have happened without him.”
Yeo’s voiced cracked: “I wish I would have been able to tell it to him, to be honest with you.”
John Hynes, the current Wild coach, got his first pro coaching job as a Wilkes-Barre assistant because Shero hired him.
Shero knew Hynes had gotten his start in coaching as a 21-year-old graduate assistant at legendary Jack Parker’s Boston University only three months after his playing days with the Terriers ended. He knew Hynes was then a graduate assistant at the U.S. National Team Development Program and an assistant coach at UMass-Lowell and University of Wisconsin before returning to the U.S. NTDP for six years as a head coach.
Fitzgerald and Botterill wanted to hire Hynes in Wilkes-Barre.
“I’m like, ‘The guy at the Program?’” Shero recounted in 2023 when Hynes was hired in Minnesota. “I said, ‘Why the f— would he leave that to go to the American League to be an assistant coach?’ They’re like, ‘He said he’s really interested.’ So I figured at this point, as the GM, I’ve got to call the guy to see what the story is.”
In August 2009 while sitting at a red light, Shero called Hynes and said, “John, let me ask you a question: Have Fitzy and Bottsy told you what the position pays?”
Hynes: “Yeah.”
Shero: “What did they tell you?”
Hynes: “It’s a one-year deal at $55,000 with a club option at 60.”
Shero: “Can I ask you a question? What do you make at the Program?”
Shero recalled the answer being a new three-year contract worth in the $110,000 to $130,000 range.
Shero laughed. “John, this cuts your pay in half, and you have a family, right?”
Hynes: “Oh yeah. I’ve got two girls, a wife and a brand-new house in Ann Arbor.”
Shero: “You went to BU, right? Played for Jack Parker?”
Hynes, laughing: “Yeah. Loved him.”
Shero: “Well, you’ll be hearing from us later today, but I’m pretty sure your f—ing major wasn’t math.”
Hynes was hired, and a year later, he was Wilkes-Barre’s head coach, propelling the start to his career that ultimately led to Shero bringing him to New Jersey and endorsing him to Guerin in Minnesota.
“He’s just one of those guys that everybody truly liked and loved,” Guerin said. “A lifetime in hockey, and he was one of the real good guys. His legacy is second to none. He had these incredible relationships with everyone, and it’s actually amazing. He’ll be greatly missed by so many.”
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6267847/2025/04/09/ray-shero-death-dan-bylsma/
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)