WINNIPEG — Chuck Fletcher just laughs at the question: “How much pride do you take being one of the longest-tenured general managers in hockey?”



“Are you trying to jinx me,” Fletcher shoots back.



Hey, it’s a valid question.



In a league where you’re hired to, in almost every case, eventually be fired, in a vocation where you often have to answer to impatient owners craving victories and worried about the bottom line, Fletcher has lasted nine seasons at the helm of the Wild, making him the sixth-longest-tenured GM.



When he arrived, the son of Hall of Fame executive Cliff Fletcher was a fresh-faced 42-year-old with 15-plus years of management experience already with the Florida Panthers, Anaheim Ducks and Pittsburgh Penguins. He had a head full of brown hair and two young kids.



Six weeks short of his nine-year anniversary in Minnesota, Fletcher is now almost 51 and a tad more grizzled. His hair’s...