Des Moines — Brett McLean hasn't and won't forget the feeling he had when he drove past Wells Fargo Arena on his way back to Minnesota for the first time as the fifth head coach in Iowa Wild history and the successor of Tim Army after driving down I-35 to Iowa's capital city for media duties.
In that full-circle moment, driving past the arena where his coaching career began, the flashbacks occurred for McLean — who served as an assistant coach in Iowa from 2017-2020 before a promotion to Minnesota, where he was an assistant under head coach Dean Evason the past three seasons.
“It just brought back a lot of memories,” McLean told The Hockey News Saturday. “A lot of good times my family and I had here. So that would probably be the moment that I’ll remember.”
The pinch me moment was out of the way because it’s been all business after that. “When it’s time to work, it’s time to work," says McLean, who has 18 years worth of professional playing experience.
That isn’t to say he doesn’t take a step back to take it all in.
“It is really special to come back and to walk into that locker room and to walk onto the bench as the head coach,” McLean says. “It means a lot to me.”
While McLean is enjoying every second of this new chapter in his life, he knows he's responsible for leading Minnesota's AHL affiliate and helping develop some of the organization's top prospects.
That's what he's been entrusted to do. And 1.5 months into his head coaching career, he said he feels the support from his staff, Iowa General Manager Mike Murray and the Wild brass.
“You feel a sense of responsibility to the fans and to the organization and obviously the Minnesota Wild who put a lot of trust and a lot of faith in myself and my staff,” McLean said.
“So you do feel that sense of responsibility and want to make sure that these young men on our team are getting taught and coached the right way and that they're ready to make that step to the next level.”
The responsibility he feels is evident as McLean took the blame for Iowa’s slow start (2-4-1 and outscored 29-15 in October, but 4-2-1 so far in November) despite the obstacles — like key players on extended recalls — they’ve faced and the adjustments that have naturally happened with so many new faces both behind the bench and in the lineup.
“The slow start to the year I’d say a lot of it is on me, too, just not — as a new head coach — maybe knowing what to focus on at the start of the year,” McLean said. “And I think we were trying to institute a whole bunch of new ideas where we should’ve just focused on a few and really locked those down.
“That's more what we're doing now, and we seem to be getting some good results out of that. So I'd put maybe the slow start more on me than on anyone else.”
One crucial difference between the NHL and AHL that McLean said he’s had to remember is patience because unlike the NHL where you tell a player to do something one time, it takes longer and more reminders in the AHL. As McLean says, it’s all about “more repetition” with younger, inexperienced players.
“That’s the fun part of it,” McLean said, “because then you get (to see) incremental improvement. You see, maybe a player has a bad habit that they do five times per game.
“Well, then they get it down to two times per game and you're excited about that and then they get totally out of their game. So that's really what makes it so enjoyable to coach in the American Hockey League.”
With an entirely new staff in Iowa in McLean and assistants Ben Simon and Patrick Dwyer, it’s taken some time for them to find their process as a staff — but now they feel they’ve got it.
This past Friday, the Dwyer family hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the coaching staff since they’re on the road this week. Things like that, time together away from hockey, is what helps them get to know each other and gel. It also helped that McLean played a season in Rockford, where Simon was an assistant coach.
And whether it’s correlated or not, Iowa is 4-2-1 so far in November.
“Now we’ve kind of found our groove and our strengths and our weaknesses and who likes to do what,” McLean said. “It just takes a little time to find that and again we feel like we’re starting to find that, and it seems like as we’ve gotten our rhythm as a coaching staff, our team’s kind of gotten in a bit of a rhythm, too.
“It’s funny how that works out. I don’t know if that’s coincidence, or if that’s just probably the way the process works out in most cases.”
McLean said before Saturday’s game against Rockford, they as a coaching staff could hardly contain their excitement because of the opportunities that exist for players to step up because of recalls and injuries and not knowing who will take advantage of it.
“That’s what’s fun, too, about a new staff, new ideas (and) new identity for the group,” McLean said. “That’s made it really gratifying to this point.”
With McLean’s family staying in Minnesota, the first-year head coach often travels up and down I-35 on off days — his family has also visited Des Moines twice — like that first trip where his coaching journey that has come full circle felt more real.
Except that first trip wasn’t an off day, it was his time to work.