Emotional McLellan reflects on his time with Sharks

SAN JOSE -– The NHL regular season may be half over, but the transition from San Jose to Edmonton for Todd McLellan is ongoing.

After the previous seven seasons with the Sharks, McLellan, whose family still lives in the Bay Area, will make his first appearance as a visiting head coach at SAP Center on Thursday with the Edmonton Oilers.

“I think it’s still happening. Really, it is,” McLellan said. “I still have my wife and son here, so every day I call back and there are some San Jose conversations. … Still have a tremendous friend base here in San Jose. Our family loved it here. We became part of the community. You never really lose [or] cut ties to it.”

McLellan was a bit glassy-eyed and emotional as he reflected back on his time with the Sharks, as he grew from a former assistant coach with the Red Wings who got his first shot as a bench boss in 2008-09 to a head coach that was highly sought after last summer. The Oilers quickly inked the Saskatchewan native to a reported five-year, $15 million contract less than one month after he and the Sharks announced a mutual parting on April 20.

He joked about going into the wrong dressing room at SAP Center on Wednesday where the Oilers held practice, although that was only because the visiting facilities have been altered since he was last in town on that side of the arena with the Red Wings.

What memories came to mind as he entered the building?

“Man, there’s a lot. A lot of really, really good ones,” he said. “Those are the ones that you want to cherish. I remember the players more than anything, and the people I worked with, [general manager] Doug [Wilson] and [assistant general manager] Joe Will and that staff. We had some real good years with the players, in particular.”

McLellan has already seen the Sharks once when the Oilers claimed a 4-3 overtime win at Rexall Place on Dec. 10. He didn’t admit to feeling any more jazzed after that one, though.

“You can’t ever make it personal. You can’t,” he said. “It doesn’t work that way. If you make it personal, it becomes about you, and it’s not that way. We need to beat 29 teams, not just San Jose. Our effort should be the same every night. That night was important to us because we picked up two points.”

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The Oilers are in a far different place than what McLellan was typically used to in San Jose, with a Sharks roster that up until last season was supposed to challenge for a Stanley Cup.

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Edmonton has endured a series of front office blunders and bad coaching hires while stockpiling high draft picks, and reset its culture this past offseason with the hiring of McLellan and general manager Peter Chiarelli, and the selection of Connor McDavid first overall in the 2015 draft (McDavid is currently out with a clavicle injury and is expected to return in early February).

The Oilers are still struggling to find any consistency and have resumed their place at the bottom of the Pacific Division with a 17-23-4 mark, but the consensus opinion is that the team is finally headed in the right direction.

McLellan spoke about the difference between coaching a team like San Jose, and taking over a rebuilding franchise in Edmonton.

“It’s significantly different,” he said. “The approach, I wouldn’t say it’s more gentle and soft, but there is a lot more sympathetic understanding for mistakes and errors, trying to put a foundation into place. A lot of these players have had four, five or six coaches over the years and different ideas and different languages and a different approach to the game. It’s hard to cleanse all of that real fast and implement your belief system and have them buy into it.”

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McLellan compared the young Oilers team to a classroom.

“I’m pleased with our students. They show up every day and they want to get better. When it comes to exam time, we’re not always knocking out A-plusses, but we’re working towards it and they’re doing their homework. I can’t complain about that.”

Despite what became an obvious rift between McLellan and Wilson last season, the coach only offered praise of the general manager, and admitted they’ve talked since they went their separate ways.

“Doug is a great man and does a really good job,” McLellan said.

Still, he’d obviously love to finish ahead of the Sharks in the standings, and shock the hockey world by getting into the playoffs in what is still a wide-open Pacific Division other than the first place Kings.

“No one other than L.A. has really stepped up to the plate consistently, so it allows us to keep fighting,” McLellan said.