The last rookie NHL head coach to win a Stanley Cup was Jean Perron with Montreal in 1986.

Before that, Al MacNeill pulled the trick with the Canadiens in 1971.

	Dave Lewis served as a Red Wings assistant coach for 14 seasons.

Learning the ropes quickly enough to propel your team to the ultimate championship could be the most difficult task facing an individual in hockey. And yet the league might never have a better chance to see that accomplishment duplicated than this season.

After all, Dave Tippett takes over a talent-heavy team in Dallas and Bryan Trottier brings a firm hand and a world of postseason experience to the Rangers.

And, maybe most impressively, Dave Lewis steps behind the bench of the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings in a role that seems to be perfectly carved for his personality.

It is the anointing of Lewis that has stirred the most confidence and the most controversy among the seven offseason coaching changes in the NHL. The 49-year-old bench boss steps into some huge shoes trying to replace coaching legend Scotty Bowman on the heels of three Stanley Cups in six seasons in Detroit. Making that transition quite a bit easier, however, is the fact Lewis has been there every step of the way. He completed his 14th year as a Detroit assistant in June by slipping on his third championship ring.

"Obviously, people are going to want to compare. But they're totally different," Red Wings GM Ken Holland said. "You're talking about a guy in Scotty Bowman who I think is the greatest coach in the history of the NHL and one of the greatest coaches in professional sports history. Dave Lewis is a guy who's a first year coach ... so to make comparisons between Lewey to Scotty Bowman, anybody to Scotty Bowman, is an unfair comparison."

And yet, the media will, the players will and the fans will. It is the curse of those who succeed the great ones. But while Holland said comparisons aren't fair, he never said anything about expectations of winning.

"I hired Dave Lewis for two reasons. No. 1, I believe he's ready to be an NHL head coach. No. 2, we've had a lot of success the last little while," Holland said. "To go outside and bring somebody else in and feel like they have to put their stamp on the hockey club or change the system or use players in a different role, that's not something we want to do. Right now, we have a good thing going."

And Lewis has been a big part of that. He understands the complex roles of a locker room full of future Hall of Famers -- in fact, maybe more so than Bowman. Lewis was the "good cop" to Bowman's sometimes brooding bad cop. Lewis was the voice of sanity to Bowman's sometimes crazed genius. Lewis was the cushion.

Now, of course, he has to try to both comfort and motivate, both coddle and kick. And Lewis said he is ready.

"I expect to be challenged and tested (by the players)," Lewis said. "And I don't expect it to be a problem."

So what makes the former defenseman such a good choice for the head coaching job? Well, 1,008 games of NHL play form a strong base.

While Lewis never won a Cup as a player, his experiences with the Islanders, Kings, Devils and Red Wings have put him in just about any situation a player could see. He built with an expansion team in the 1970s and then dealt with the heartbreak of being traded (as part of the Butch Goring deal) right before the Islanders went on to win four Cups in a row. He enjoyed success (43-24-13 in 1980-81) and suffered defeat (24-41-15 in 1981-82) in two strange seasons in Los Angeles. He was a veteran on one of the worst teams in the league with the 1983-86 Devils. And he made one last spirited run to the conference championship with Detroit in 1987 playing beside a young captain named Steve Yzerman.

That relationship with Yzerman has been a key to Lewis' 14 years as an assistant in Detroit. But it doesn't preclude the new coach from getting tough.

"I'm going to work on respect, trust and belief in each other," Lewis said. "Hard decisions are going to have to be made. I hope they respect it, because it's a business -- whether it's sending somebody down, trading somebody or cutting somebody."

So while Lewis might technically have the title of "rookie" head coach, he's also entering his 30th season of NHL action.

"No butterflies at all," he said. "I look as it as a little bit different than a lot of other people. I look at it as a great challenge and a great opportunity with a great bunch of guys."

Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.