TRAVERSE CITY, MI – It’s been a great few months for Todd Nelson. The Grand Rapids Griffins head coach helped lead his team to a Calder Cup championship in the AHL. He was also a finalist for the Arizona Coyotes head coaching job after impressing management in Arizona with his coaching philosophy. According to an NHL source, the Coyotes will name Rick Tocchet the next coach of the franchise but Nelson left a positive impact after a two-day interview. He appears to be knocking on the door of another NHL job after getting a taste as a head coach in Edmonton.

Nelson has been coaching the Red Wings prospects in their development camp this week and sat down with The Athletic‘s Craig Custance to chat about coaching and what he believes it takes to be a successful leader.

Craig Custance: I heard your aggressive philosophy was one of the things that impressed the Coyotes most during your interview. How would you describe your philosophy as a coach?

Todd Nelson: “I think in this day and age, if you wait for something bad to happen it’s going to happen. Why not try to dictate play? That goes along with my system work, that goes along with my philosophy. I hate the term, ‘Let’s weather the storm.’ I hate that because you’re in a defensive mode versus ‘We fight fire with fire’ and we’re going to jam it down their throat. Over the course of a game or series you have to adjust tactics; I get that. Those are the adjustments you have to make. I want to force them to beat us. If I get beat, I don’t want to do it in a defensive mode. I want to go after them. If they beat us, I tip my hat to them.”

CC: What’s your forecheck?

TN: “It’s nothing revolutionary. A lot of people play 1-2-2 in the offensive zone, they’ll play a 1-2-2, 1-3-1 in the neutral zone. We do play that way. It depends on the team. I also play a 2-1-2 in the neutral zone and a 2-1-2 in the offensive zone. That’s more of an aggressive system. You can’t implement it unless you have total buy-in from the players. If you make a mistake, odd man rushes happen.”

CC: You’re comfortable with that higher risk?

TN: “Here’s the thing. People will tell me I couldn’t play that way in the NHL and I did it in Edmonton. I talked to the players, I asked them, ‘How do you feel about this?’ The players like it. They’re aggressive, they’re on their toes. It’s more of an up-tempo system. The whole philosophy is to create turnovers. When I was in Edmonton our defensive corps wasn’t as strong as other teams. I tried to create turnovers in the offensive zone and neutral zone rather than wait for them to dump the puck – then we had to break the puck out. My philosophy is, I like to create turnovers in the neutral zone and offensive zone so we have more offensive zone time, which will lead to more goals.”

CC: And you don’t need a great defense to do that.

TN: “You need a committed team. You need a team that trusts you and buys into what you’re selling. In Edmonton that’s one of the tweaks I made. But you need buy-in. It’s up to the coaching staff to get that buy-in from players. I can teach you any system I want, if the players don’t trust me and buy in to what I’m teaching, they’re going to do it 50-50. In the 2-1-2, you’re all-in. It’s not a toe in the water. You’re all in.”

CC: How do you get that buy-in as a coach?

TN: “I show the players I care about them on a personal level. It sounds corny. Everybody likes to hear things about themselves if they’re doing good things or bad. I think every day the communication has to be there. I try to make a point every day to communicate with every player. … Some people say, ‘Oh he’s a players coach.’ I hate that term because it makes you sound soft. I do hold players accountable. Eventually you get to a point in time where your players trust you and respect you and you don’t have to raise your voice. You just look at them and they feel disappointed. That takes time.”

CC: How much consistency do the Red Wings want as an organization between what Jeff Blashill is running in Detroit and what you’re running in Grand Rapids?

TN: “We’ll start the year playing the way Detroit does, then we’ll touch on it over the course of the year so that when players get called up they know exactly what’s going on. Detroit will make adjustments as they go. They’ll change their penalty kill forecheck. They’ll change their power play. Those are the things you’ll adjust the most, your special teams. Jeff and I have a great relationship, we talk about it. He says, ‘Hey you have different personnel than I have.’ It’s the coach’s responsibility to make it fit. For instance, last year our power play was okay, it was 15 percent. I looked at the personnel I had. I was blessed with a forward group that was pretty explosive. As a defensive corps, I had a great group but the thing is, for the power play, I felt that going with five forwards was the right choice. Most people think, ‘Oh, what’s he doing going five forwards? He’s going to get scored on shorthanded.’ It goes on with my philosophy. ‘Hey, we’re going at you.'”

CC: You ran five forwards on the power play?

TN: “Five forwards. We had the best power play in the league. We broke a franchise record and were on the cusp of breaking the league record. We ran 26 percent the whole year.”

CC: So it was a 1-3-1?

TN: “Oh yeah. The 1-3-1 would morph into an overload, morph into a spread. It wasn’t a stationary power play. Players were interchangeable. Say if I had the guy in the middle, the bumper, he gets caught in the corner, somebody else replaced him. It was all interchangeable. You can’t be a one-trick pony. We morphed from a 1-3-1 to an overload to a spread, back to a 1-3-1. The players got used to it. I had five forwards on one unit and four forwards and one defenseman on the second unit. I heard critics saying ‘That’s not smart to do.’ You know what? It makes sense to me; the personnel I had, I’m trying to find ice time for everybody.”

CC: From a player development point of view, if you’re the Red Wings trying to develop a young defenseman into a power play quarterback, I don’t know if I want Todd Nelson running five forwards on the power play in Grand Rapids.

TN: “In the case of Joe Hicketts or [Filip] Hronek, they both had opportunities on the power play, but not as much last year as they will this year. Now, our personnel is changing. I’m going to have to go two defensemen and three forwards and that’s fine. We have the offensive defensemen coming through the system. Last year was different, I had a forward unit more potent.”

CC: Do you use analytics to impact these decision?

TN: “Oh yeah. But we don’t have the resources in Grand Rapids that the NHL teams do. Here’s the thing about analytics: I believe in them but they can’t take control of you. There has to be a balance. The numbers do play a factor but hockey is a reactionary game.”

CC: You had a short opportunity as head coach in Edmonton [46 games in 2014-15 season]. Do you think that hurt or helped you?

TN: “I think it helped. For one thing, it gave me confidence that I could coach up there and do well. I could coach against my peers up there. I felt very comfortable every game. It didn’t matter if I was coaching against Mike Babcock, Barry Trotz, Darryl Sutter, it didn’t matter. I would have liked to win more games but based on what was provided for me and in front of me, those players played hard for me. They played for each other. When I first got there, you’d see pockets of five people eating among themselves. A month and a half into it, I saw 15, 16 guys eating a meal together. Being a team. That gave me confidence to know this applies to the National Hockey League. It’s not the huge step I thought it may be. You’re just coaching your team. It helped me. We overcame a lot of adversity.”

CC: What was the interview process like with Arizona?

TN: “They called up Kenny [Holland], asked for permission and he granted it. I’m very grateful for that. I spoke with them, the interview went well. I met with them Thursday and Friday. I walked out of the interview feeling really good about myself. It’s just a matter of who they want as a head coach.”

CC: It sounded like it went well from their side too.

TN: “I enjoyed the interview. I felt confident. We’re coming off a Calder Cup win. I’ve coached in the league before as an assistant. People forget I was an assistant two years in Atlanta. I felt good walking out of that interview.”

Todd Nelson chats with Red Wings defenseman prospect Jordan Sambrook during development camp in Traverse City. (both photos by Michael Caples / Special to The Athletic)

CC: An interview like that can be a shot of a lifetime for a coach. How did you prepare?

TN: “Every interview I’ve been a part of has been different. Every management wants to see how you’re going to play. Every management team wants to see your philosophy. I prepared system work of all my systems and showed them. I told them what my philosophy was. I believe in a family-first atmosphere. Nothing is stronger than a family. Family is first. When the guys are away from the rink, they have their families and support group. It goes further than that. If you get the guys invested, you have to have their support system away from the rink on board. If you get them on board, you’re going to be successful. You don’t need wives, kids, girlfriends in the second round of playoffs going, ‘It sure would be nice to get back home.’ You have to have them involved. It’s so important to get them involved and be part of our team. When adversity hits, they’re going to be the ones the players talk to. You’d better make sure it’s in a positive fashion.”

CC: Players and their families today can tell if a coach is looking out for the players or interested only in self-promotion.

TN: “The worst thing a coach can do is lie to your players or be someone you’re not. I’m Todd Nelson. I’m not like any other coach. Mike Babcock is not like any other coach. He’s Mike Babcock. You can’t be something you’re not, if you try to do that and try to be fake, they read right through that and your trust is gone.”

CC: Who has been your biggest influence as a coach?

TN: “My father taught me the value of team. He taught me the value of wins… Every coach I took something from. I got to Portland and Barry Trotz was the coach there. He was a young coach who I thought was ahead of his time. He taught a lot of what I’m talking about. He’s a big culture guy. He was a huge influence on me. I thought he was ahead of his time in 1994. It was how he brought the team together, how we worked hard for each other, how we fought for each other. He had a big influence on me. He’s still a big influence on me today. I talked to him at the draft. There’s a reason why he gets guys like Alex Ovechkin to buy in to the team concept. From there, I worked with Johnny Anderson [with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves]. He taught me not to be afraid. I was so conservative with my coaching. It was almost like the old New Jersey Devils. So structured. He taught me the creative side of it. I still remember, we played our system the whole year, it was a 1-2-2, a left wing lock in the neutral zone. We were having trouble against Milwaukee that year because they broke the puck out so well. Right before playoffs, we never even worked on it, he said, ‘We’re going 2-1-2 against these guys.’ We swept them. He taught me not to be afraid. He taught me to try things. Those are the guys who influenced me. Johnny brought creativity to my coaching.”

CC: The game needs more creativity.

TN: “I agree. I just want the opportunity to show it.”