"There was talk of him when I first got here of if he was coming over, when he was coming over, all that kind of stuff," Evason said. "After you get to know him and meet him and speak to him, I don't think there was any doubt that he was coming to play in the National Hockey League and coming to play for the Minnesota Wild. That's exciting for us, his attitude, as you all know ... if you've seen him on video, he's got a smile on his face all the time and comes to work that way. We're excited to get him on the ice and get playing the game of hockey."
Picking up a player for the first time at the airport was a new experience for Evason, the long-time AHL head coach who has certainly had his fair share of unique first meetings in the course of his career. Getting an opportunity to know him a little better the past couple of weeks has been a pleasant experience, even though it, like everything else in 2020, has been out of the ordinary.
"We haven't held any formal meetings, but we're walking around and chatting with the guys," Evason said. "You want to create relationships and that comfort of the coach-player relationship where they feel comfortable coming in and speaking with you. A lot of times, it's not having them come into your office, shut the door and having a heart-to-heart, it's more just getting to know them as people away from the ice surface."
The unusual offseason for Evason has only really been that way because of the time of year it has occurred.
Under normal circumstances, the Wild would be nearly three months into its regular season -- somewhere around the halfway point.
But it's been nearly five months since the team was eliminated from the Edmonton bubble, which is about the same length of time it would have been under normal circumstances, from the end of the regular season in April until a new training camp in September.
Evason knew a new season was coming, so the actual timeline of events has been rather normal.
"It honestly doesn't matter," Evason said. "We got prepared the same way as we were going to forward before the bubble. It was no different for us here as a coaching staff. We got our stuff prepared, got our structure prepared, just waiting to see how long the offseason would be] and if there was exhibition games."
That normalcy is probably the last bit of it he and the Wild will experience for a time.
With empty buildings, a new division, a bunch of new faces on the roster and finding new routines in a season in which 56 games will be played in a rather short amount of time, Evason will be forced to adapt and adjust under a sort of new normal ... at least for the next few months.
The hope is that by the time training camp ahead of the 2021-22 season gets started about nine months from now, the pandemic will have subsided enough for normalcy to have returned.
Actual, real normalcy.
Until then, the Wild, led by Evason, will do its best to make due.
"[We'll just] kind of have a template and work off of that," Evason said. "It's going to be like that all year. We talk a lot about that as a group and we'll continue to talk about it as a coaching staff and management and a training staff.
"We'll have to be prepared for anything that's thrown at us, different scenarios that are thrown at us and adjustments that we have to make on a daily basis. We're ready to go with training camp now and that first day, we're really looking forward to it."
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