Over the past few days, Bill Guerin’s entire management team converged on Minnesota in the middle of a blizzard to make the final decisions on the men’s hockey roster for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.

Asked how big the debates were or if everybody was pretty much in lockstep, the American general manager and U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer deadpanned, “Well, … we are now.”

After a hearty laugh, Guerin, who doubles as GM of the Minnesota Wild, told The Athletic in all seriousness, “The reason I have the guys that I have on staff is because even if they agree with me, they challenge me. We all think in different ways. We all have different ideas. And it’s like, ‘Hey, I agree with you, but let’s think of it this way or let’s think of this.’ And that helps make the decision. And I valued every single one of their opinions. And they pushed me where we feel that we’re in a good place heading into the Olympics.”

Guerin’s management team includes USA Hockey executive director Pat Kelleher and assistant executive director John Vanbiesbrouck, as well as Edmonton Oilers GM Stan Bowman, New York Rangers GM Chris Drury, New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald, Wild assistant GM Chris Kelleher and Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito. Rangers coach Mike Sullivan, who will coach the Americans in Italy, also had a giant say.

The roster deadline to submit teams is Wednesday. And while Hockey Canada will call players in the morning and announce its team at noon (ET), the United States’ team will be announced on NBC’s “Today” show on Friday morning.

Guerin will begin calling the players who made the team and didn’t make the team on Wednesday morning.

The Americans already have several players expected to be on the Olympic team banged up, guys such as anticipated captain Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Matthew Tkachuk, Zach Werenski and Jaccob Slavin. But with so much hockey still left to play in January and early February before NHL players head to Italy, Guerin knows that the players named to the roster Friday won’t all necessarily be healthy in five weeks. So a big part of his conversations Wednesday with the players who didn’t make the initial list of 14 forwards, eight defensemen and three goalies will be to lift their spirits and inform them they could be first out of the bullpen if there’s an injury.

“I know I’m going to be delivering disappointing news to some people, but I need to be honest with them and communicate the truth and what reality is,” Guerin said. “There’s a lot of hockey between now and then, we just don’t know what’s gonna happen and just ‘be ready.’ That’s all I can really say to them, and I will.”

When you have such a large pool of terrific players to choose from, there will be snubs and there will be plenty of second-guessing.

It’s expected that really good players and even star goal scorers may be left off the roster in lieu of checking forwards who may be better suited for bottom-six, more defensive and penalty killing roles. The Americans loved how they played during the 4 Nations Face-Off last February, where they lost in the championship in overtime to Connor McDavid and the Canadians.