New York Islanders

Wait, Nolan thought, that's it? I'm hired?

He had been let down so many times that he had come to brace for the worst. This wasn't a cruel joke, and it wasn't a dream. It was very real, good news indeed, but the truth was he didn't have a clue what to do when Wang told him he had the job. Should he jump up and down? Should he scream away nearly a decade of pent-up emotions?

Nolan was among the most demonstrative people in Buffalo Sabres' history before he was named Coach of the Year and subsequently vanished after the 1996-97 season for reasons still not entirely clear. But here's what he came up with upon his release from purgatory and his return to the National Hockey League:

Nothing.

"I was more stunned than anything," Nolan said. "Obviously, I wanted it, but I just went numb for a while. I walked out and froze for a couple hours, to make sure this thing was really happening. I was shocked and excited and had all these emotions going on at the same time. I really didn't know how to express them."

This from a man who pulled over to the side of the road and bawled his eyes out in 2001 upon hearing the Islanders selected Peter Laviolette as coach rather than him. This from a man who said he would ride horseback to Calgary if the Flames hired him. This from a man who arrived in town with a story about how a customs official made him open his trunk to see if he had any blood and guts inside. This from a man who always exposed his soul, down to his final days in Buffalo.

Perhaps that says something about him, where he's been and how far he traveled to return to where he always thought he belonged. To review, Nolan was entangled in a bitter feud involving former General Manager John Muckler and then President Larry Quinn. He also despised Dominik Hasek and believed the all-world goalie quit on the Sabres in the playoffs, an opinion shared by many of Hasek's teammates.

Eventually, everybody involved was sent packing. Quinn was fired when the Rigas family took over, disappeared for a few years and returned as the Sabres' managing partner. Muckler was hired and fired by the New York Rangers before taking over as GM in Ottawa. Hasek bullied the Sabres into trading him to Detroit, where he won a Stanley Cup, and played for the Senators this season.

Nolan? Nothing.

Many believed his exile from the NHL was a great injustice, especially for an Ojibwa who spent his life fighting inequities and stereotypes. He was among the most popular figures in Western New York at a time when Jim Kelly quarterbacked the Bills and Hasek was on his way to winning his third of six Vezina trophies as the NHL's top goaltender.

It also came during a stressful transition period in which the Rigas family assumed control of the franchise. People within the organization were trying to position themselves for a new administration, and many were left picking sides. Nolan was swallowed up, in many ways, by a perfect storm.

He rejected a one-year offer from incoming Sabres General Manager Darcy Regier, perceived as a slap in the face after guiding the Sabres to a division title - their only one in the past 25 years, in fact - with Derek Plante and Brian Holzinger as his leading scorers. Both were solid players at the time but neither had distinguished NHL careers and never again produced the way they did under Nolan.

"It just shows you what type of coach Teddy was," Holzinger said by telephone from his home in Cleveland. "I always referred to him as a guy who knew how to get the best out of his players, whether it be motivating them in the right way or doing whatever it took to get [them] going."

Every other team has switched coaches since Nolan left Buffalo. Most have changed a few times. None hired him. His replacement, Lindy Ruff, has since become the longest-tenured coach in the NHL and the winningest coach in Sabres' history. In his eight seasons, the Sabres reached the Eastern Conference finals three times and the Stanley Cup finals once.