Bruce Boudreau looks on during the third period of the game against Winnipeg Jets on October 15, 2016 at Xcel Energy Center in St Paul, Minnesota. The Wild defeated the Jets 4-3. (Getty Images)

ST. PAUL, Minn. – In the Xcel Energy Center last week, several Minnesota Wild players went into Bruce Boudreau’s office one-by-one following a practice.

They weren’t being singled out for anything wrong. Boudreau, who is in his first year with the team, simply wanted to meet with them to discuss what was going on in their lives. This is how Boudreau is trying to both figure out his new team and win them over

“I think communication is really important and for me it’s all about what happened to me. When I was younger and playing with the (Toronto Maple) Leafs, I may have sat out 20 games in a row but the coach or GM, nobody said anything to me, so I didn’t know if it was good, bad,” Boudreau said. “I vowed if I ever get to be a coach that I want to make sure the players know why they’re sitting out. The players know, I don’t want them to have questions because when you start having questions you always think the worst all the time, and that might never be the case. So come out and talk to me.”

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Hockey contest now]

In hockey there’s a lot talk about systems and puck possession, but in a lot of cases there’s more to success than just Xs and Os. Players need to have faith in the coach and want to play for him. Boudreau knows that if the Wild trust him that maybe he can coax more out of the group that’s struggled to break through the last several years.

“You need to be able to go to bat for (your coaches),” defenseman Ryan Suter said. “Barry Trotz (when I was in Nashville) was a really good guy and people wanted to play for him because he was such a nice guy. Bruce is a really good guy and you want to play for those guys that have your backs that are there for you, stick up for you and you want to work for someone you really respect and trust and I feel that’s the same way with us.”

During the offseason, the Wild put a hard sell on the 61-year-old Boudreau with good reason. Since he started coaching in the NHL in 2007-08 with the Washington Capitals, he has won eight division titles.

View photos Head coach Bruce Boudreau of the Minnesota Wild and manager Paul Molitor #4 of the Minnesota Twins shake hands after Boudreau delivered a ceremonial pitch before the game between the Minnesota Twins and the Toronto Blue Jays on May 19, 2016 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Blue Jays defeated the Twins 3-2 in eleven innings. (Getty Images) More

He was fired from the Anaheim Ducks last offseason after the team lost their fourth straight Game 7 at home with Boudreau at the helm. Even though Boudreau held a 208-104-40 record with the Ducks, general manager Bob Murray didn’t want the potential distraction of going into another postseason dealing with the storyline of Boudreau’s Game 7 failures.

The Wild, an organization that had fired Mike Yeo the prior year and replaced him with John Torcehtti on an interim basis, weren’t scared away by Boudreau’s playoff woes. They saw a guy who had gotten all the potential he could out of his teams and guided them to a type of regular season consistency that has been tough to attain in the league’s salary cap era.

“He’s very approachable, but at the same time he’s demanding of what he wants and he really holds individuals accountable and he’s done that since training camp and through the first game so I think in the long run we’re going to respond well to that,” forward Zach Parise said.

Boudreau’s approach doesn’t just include an open-door policy to players. He also populates the locker room walls with quotes from Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Jerry West and others. This could seem folksy to old school hockey hardliners, but he’s OK with this. Overall, his ‘down-to-earth’ style has helped him gain respect around the league from players to coaches to management and media as well.

“We have (quotes) all in the insides of the stalls of the bathroom from Larry Bird, all these champions and I just think it resonates to somebody – it resonates to me,” Boudreau said. “If somebody says, ‘if I see that if he can do it I can do it. If Michael Jordan is saying something like that, then holy crap I have to do that,’ you know?”

For years, the Wild lavished players with big contracts who had flourished offensively in prior locations, but saw their numbers dip in Minnesota under Yeo. Parise (13 years at $98 million) scored 45 and 38 goals with the New Jersey Devils but hasn’t scored more than 33 in a season with Minnesota since he signed in the summer of 2012.

Story continues