Yeo confident he can do the job for Wild

Mike Yeo picked up the phone Thursday morning, heard Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher's words and his head started "spinning."

"Is this really happening?" Yeo wondered.

After all, the Houston Aeros coach felt he had a phenomenal interview last week. But for six anxious, nailbiting days, Yeo heard nothing as bigger names such as Craig MacTavish and Ken Hitchcock floated around.

Yeo started to fret that maybe the no NHL-playing experience thing, the one-year-of-head-coaching experience thing, the glaring number of 37 (his age) thing -- that those factors outweighed his five years of assistant coaching experience with Pittsburgh, the Stanley Cup won there, the Aeros' run to the Calder Cup finals this year and his confident, convincing case to Fletcher that he was deserving to be the next Wild coach.

"In the days leading up to it, I think I got the job and didn't get the job about 76 times," Yeo said, laughing. "I kept changing my own mind. But when something like that [phone call] happens, it's life-changing.

"You can talk about my experience and all the other things about the journey to get here. But I can tell you one thing: I've worked my tail off to get here, and I'm very proud of the fact that I'm here."

Yeo may be only 37, but he started coaching at age 26 in Wilkes-Barre. He began his NHL coaching career at age 32. He never has been fired, and he helped guide five teams to Finals in 11 years. He worked hand in hand with Penguins stars Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal, and he never was intimidated coaching such older vets as Bill Guerin, Gary Roberts, Mark Recchi and John LeClair.

"I like that you keep bringing up my age, because I don't feel 37 years old and no, I don't look 37 years old," kidded Yeo. "I've been coaching long enough -- it's like dog years: For every year of coaching, you add five years onto your life."

But Yeo, turning serious, said, "I believe in my thoughts and my ideas of how the game should be played, and I don't have any doubts about it."

'Attention to detail'

The way he wants the Wild to play is the way Houston played. It's also the way star-laden Pittsburgh plays: aggressive, physical, structured, smart, doing the little things right and being a tough team to play against, especially at home.

It's the way Todd Richards, Yeo's predecessor, wanted the Wild to play, too, but that didn't happen consistently enough in his two years.

Fletcher, once assistant GM in Pittsburgh, worked with Yeo three years there. He would arrive at 8:30 a.m. and discover Yeo had been there three hours dissecting video.

He analyzed Yeo throughout the Aeros' postseason. Fletcher was so convinced Yeo was the right guy, he convinced owner Craig Leipold that he should hire a first-year NHL head coach a second time.

That move places pressure squarely onto Fletcher's shoulders.

"The more I watched Houston play, their attention to detail night in and night out and knowing what I was looking for in a coach, it just became more apparent the longer the process went that Mike was the guy," Fletcher said. "I continued to play devil's advocate. I continued to ask questions -- challenging my own convictions, trying to find reasons Mike should not be the coach.

"At the end of the day, the only good reason I could come up with ... was that he was 37 years old."

Always wanted to coach

Fletcher will retain veteran assistant Rick Wilson, who will be retained, as well as goalie coach Bob Mason. From there, Yeo will have major input in hiring at least one more assistant (Aeros assistant and longtime NHL defenseman Darryl Sydor will surely be a candidate) and a video coach.

Yeo will meet with assistant Darby Hendrickson and strength coach Chris Pietrzak-Wegner, whose contracts expire June 30.

Yeo knew he wanted to be a coach as a teenager. He captained Dave Tippett's Aeros to a Turner Cup in 1999, but knew he was an "average player."

The North Bay, Ontario, native was a character winger who overcame four surgeries in his first three years of juniors. He thought he once had a contract with the Boston Bruins, but failed a physical because of a shoulder injury. He was never the best player on his team.

In Sudbury of the Ontario Hockey League, he played with future NHLers Michael Peca, Glen Murray, Derek Armstrong and Sean O'Donnell.

"Even there, I was a fourth-line plumber," Yeo said, laughing. "I remember as a player at 18 years old writing down drills that your coach is doing because you want to be able to go back and use them one day."

'His highest challenge'

At the end of every season in Pittsburgh, Yeo sat down with Penguins General Manager Ray Shero to discuss his long-term goal of becoming an NHL head coach. Finally, in 2010, Yeo said it was time to go to the AHL and run his own team.

A year later, he arrived in Minnesota after going 60-38-6, including the playoffs. The Wild, the way it currently stands, is short on offense and its highly touted prospects are at least a year from entering the system. But some players Yeo knows and trusts, such as Colton Gillies, Casey Wellman, Marco Scandella and Jared Spurgeon, should vie for spots next season.

Over the next two or three years, though, the Wild is going to fill the majority of its positions internally, meaning it plans to get younger.

"That's the model of every Stanley Cup-winning team," Fletcher said.

That means Yeo will have his work cut out for him confronting the challenges of a team that's missed the playoffs three consecutive years.

Tippett, now Phoenix's coach and a big fan of Yeo's, said, "It's the highest challenge a coach can have to coach in the NHL. Today's coach has got to have a great grasp of the X's and O's, but he's got to also have a grasp of how to get the best of the personnel in front of him.

"Yeosie is a smart guy. He'll evaluate what he has and how they're going to win. I've got every bit of confidence that Yeosie will be able to do that, but it'll be a tough chore. There's a lot of good coaches in this league and every team will be very prepared. It'll be his highest challenge."

Yeo doesn't seem worried. But it may take patience from everyone.

"I want to make the playoffs. And I don't think you're going to find anybody around here that hates to lose as much as I do," Yeo said. "But I also know and understand there's a process involved with that. You start focusing on the wins and the playoffs, and you're losing sight on what's really important. And we have to build a foundation, we have to build an identity. ... When you do that, the rest of it, that's the gravy.

"I'm not going to sit here and say we're going to do this fast. I'm not putting a timeline on it. I'm not going to skip Steps 1 through 3 because we're trying to get to Stage 5."

Staff writer Brian Stensaas contributed to this report.