Rich Chere at The Star-Ledger has a great story up today on John MacLean’s path to becoming the first former Devils player to become head coach, focusing on the day in 1997 that MacLean publicly demanded a trade.
“I feel I’m just dying on the vine here, and it’s time to move on,” MacLean said that morning. “There has been no contract offer, and I’m not going to sit by and wait around for one. I talked to Lou and have requested a trade. I told him I won’t be coming back, that it’s time for me to go.
Yet eventually, any hard feelings were set aside when MacLean was invited to be part of training camp in 2002 before becoming an assistant coach with the team. Said MacLean about the turnaround:
“I definitely thought I’d be back at some point,” MacLean said. “Things happen and at that time things were happening. It may not have been handled correctly, on my part either, but there is a lot of history here with me. This is where I feel most comfortable.
“You can’t hide from what happened. I learned from it and from the places I went. They were great learning experiences for me. It shapes who you are. You just go on.”