Column: Coach Bruce Boudreau makes return to Anaheim with the Minnesota Wild

It was Stanley Cup or bust for Bruce Boudreau as the Ducks’ coach last season, and he knew it.

It was easy for them to blame random misfortune for losing their 2013 first-round playoff series to Detroit in a seventh game at home after they had taken a 3-2 lead. When they squandered the same lead over the Kings in the second round in 2014 and again lost Game 7 at home, well, no one else beat the Kings that spring. Losing in the same manner could still be called an oddity.

Their third such exit, in the 2015 Western Conference final against the eventual champion Chicago Blackhawks, raised doubts about their leadership on and off the ice. When they couldn’t hold a 3-2 lead over Nashville and lost Game 7 at home in the first round last spring, someone was going to have to pay and it wasn’t going to be the high-salaried, high-profile players who had disappeared. “We knew we were done,” Boudreau said. “We just didn’t know when.”

He was fired by General Manager Bob Murray two days later. He was unemployed for nine days, and that long only because he had several options to consider.

Boudreau chose the Minnesota Wild, and on Sunday he will return to Anaheim for the first time since his dismissal. His nostalgia trip began Friday with the Wild’s practice in El Segundo, where he spent many summer-camp weeks while employed as coach of the Kings’ top farm team, and it continued with Minnesota’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Kings on Saturday at Staples Center. “It’s hard to say with a straight face that it’s just another road trip,” he said.

Asked if he held any bitterness toward the Ducks, he paused. “That’s a good question,” he said. “I want to say no, because it was a great experience living in California. I never thought I’d live there. I was hoping I’d get a job with the Kings back in the day.

“For what I learned and the players I got to coach, I made many friends and all those things. So there was no bitterness there.”

Maybe not, and Boudreau said he’s grateful Murray didn’t keep him in limbo and let him go while other coaching jobs were open. The Ducks weren’t planning a video to recognize Boudreau and the four straight division titles he won, though that could change.

Nonetheless, defenseman Josh Manson credited Boudreau for having a major impact on his career by offering more than tips on strategy. “Bruce is a very personable guy. It was great [for him] to be able ask you how your day was in the room,” Manson said. “He was a very respectful man. You miss it in a way.”

If Boudreau misses the Ducks, he finds it easier to return with a team whose .697 points percentage is tops in the West and third in the NHL. “That doesn’t hurt,” he said, “coming in here playing good.”

The Wild has long been a decent little team — emphasis on little — but they haven’t gotten past the second round of the playoffs since 2003. Boudreau, known as a players’ coach with the Washington Capitals and the Ducks, carried that trait to Minnesota. And as in his previous stops he has achieved regular-season success: He recently guided the Wild to a franchise-record 12-game winning streak, the first NHL head coach to lead three different teams to winning streaks of 10 or more games.

Minnesota’s streak, which ended against Columbus on New Year’s Eve, followed a three-game winless stretch that had left the team 11-8-4. When the season could have tipped the wrong way, he kept players’ attention and earned their trust.

“It’s been great so far,” forward Jason Zucker said. “We knew it was going to be a transition from coaching staff to coaching staff, so we knew that we weren’t going to be the best team come day one. But we want to make sure we’re the best team come the start of the playoffs.”

Boudreau hasn’t hesitated to bench veterans or to give players offensive freedom as long as they take care of their defensive chores. “He’s not coming up with secret plays or anything like that,” said winger Chris Stewart, who played for Boudreau last season and followed him to Minnesota as a free agent. “He’s letting the players play, and when you got a little bit of a leash, it definitely helps.”

The Wild is a better team with Boudreau than they were under former coach Mike Yeo, whose inflexible, defense-first strategy bored fans and hampered players’ creativity. But are the Ducks better off with Randy Carlyle than with Boudreau?

The Ducks are nine points ahead of where they stood at the same stage last season, before they launched a 20-2-1 rampage. One reason Murray took the unusual step of rehiring Randy Carlyle was because Carlyle — who had preceded Boudreau — had coached Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, and Murray believed Carlyle could motivate them. Both have struggled this season, producing no gain there.

It’s too soon to say which team will come out ahead in this coaching merry-go-round ride. For now, Boudreau is enjoying this journey down memory lane and hopes he can take a longer and happier playoff journey with Minnesota than he did with the Ducks. “You want to be playing your best hockey in April and beyond. And May,” said Boudreau, whose latest playoff game with the Ducks was on May 30, 2015. “I don’t know what beyond is. May and June. That would be a nice thing.”

helene.elliott@latimes.com

Follow Helene Elliott on Twitter @helenenothelen