Bill Guerin is starting down a path Jason Botterill began to travel just over two years ago.
That's why Botterill, who left the Penguins' front office to take over as general manager in Buffalo in the spring of 2017, is so familiar with the challenges that Guerin, who took over as GM in Minnesota last week, will face with the Wild.
Why he recognizes how the demands of his new job will differ from those Guerin experienced as an assistant GM with the Penguins. Especially the part in which Guerin now will have to make decisions, rather than simply helping to shape them.
Nonetheless, Botterill said today that he expects Guerin to do well in Minnesota, at least in part because of the training he received with the Penguins.
"For the most part, he'll be very well-prepared," Botterill said. "That's what I would expect, after working under both Ray Shero and Jim Rutherford, the experiences they gave you and the responsibilities they gave you. When you move into the big chair, there's going to be a lot more things going at him, just the organization of everything. But there won't be a lot of things that Billy hasn't seen or been a part of before, because Jim and Ray did a great job of giving people the responsibility for things and allowing them to do those things.
"But also having a very collaborative model, of being involved in a lot of important decisions. I don't think there will be a lot for him that will be surprising. It's just very different that he'll have to be organizing it all, that instead of giving recommendations, you have to make the final decision."
Wild owner Craig Leopold chose Guerin to replace Paul Fenton, who was fired after little more than a year as GM. Much as Botterill had been a few years earlier, Guerin was high on most people's lists of candidates capable of taking over an NHL operation.
"His name has come up for a few different positions, so it doesn't surprise me at all that he's now taken the next step," Botterill said. "You just look at his experience in Pittsburgh, working in player development and then being part of a group that's certainly in a win-now mindset on how to tweak their team each year to make a run at the Stanley Cup. Having experience in both of those areas makes him very marketable, as an NHL executive."
He added that Guerin's personality and outgoing nature will be assets as a GM.
"What Billy has always done extremely well is to voice his opinion when it's asked," Botterill said. "He's done a great job in interacting with people and learning from them. One of Billy's strength is his communication skills. Whether you're interacting with an owner or a star player or an assistant equipment manager at the American Hockey League level, Billy has always found an ability to relate to that person and gain knowledge from them.
"That's something he's going to have to continue to do, especially coming in at such a late part of the (offseason). There's not going to be a lot of opportunity to make a lot of changes. He's going to have to communicate a lot over the next few weeks to get a feel for his team and his organization. Hopefully, those skills that he's developed over the last few years will help him in the near future."
Still, he believes there are some facets of the job for which Guerin cannot be prepared until he experiences them, like what to expect from individual GMs when he's interacting with them.
"Until you get on the phone and communicate with other people, you don't really have a true feel," Botterill said. "It's something you've always learned from Jim and Ray -- 'Hey, this is what that team's looking for,' and things like that -- but until Billy gets on the phone and actually communicates with guys ... he's just going to have to learn other GMs' styles from his own experience."
Guerin, like Botterill before him, handled a variety of duties with the Penguins. Both, for example, served as GM of the franchise's American Hockey League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre.
The difference now for Guerin, Botterill said, is that everything under the umbrella of hockey operations will be his responsibility. And the Wild's prospects for anything more than sporadic success will hinge on him getting all of it right.
"The bottom line is, if any aspect of an organization falters, your entire organization falters," Botterill said. "Whether it's amateur scouting, development, coaching ... if any one of those departments doesn't work out well, you're not going to have long-term success. What you realize is that you can't be in every position (personally). You can't be at every amateur game and every pro game.
"That's where it's (imperative) that you hire the right people and trust those people. Just like Ray and Jim trusted us and gave us responsibilities to handle aspects of the organization, it's going to be very important for Billy to do the same thing in Minnesota."