COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus Blue Jackets hope they finally got it right behind their bench.
The club’s third coaching search in four summers ended Monday when former Minnesota Wild coach Dean Evason was named the 11th coach in Blue Jackets history. Evason, 59, was signed to a multiyear contract after a lengthy and intense hiring process guided by president and general manager Don Waddell.
“There is a great core and a lot of young talent on this team,” Evason said in a statement. “I am really looking forward to working with this group and helping us become a team that plays extremely hard and competes at the highest level.”
GOT OUR GUY 🤩
We’ve named Dean Evason as our new head coach!
We’re thrilled to welcome Dean and his wife Jen to the #CBJ family!
📝 https://t.co/BMpvXKi4yc pic.twitter.com/muZyWKBA47
— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) July 22, 2024
Waddell made it clear from the start that he was interested in interviewing only coaches with previous NHL head-coaching experience, so the pool of candidates quickly was whittled to a manageable number. But the last three weeks were filled with interviews and negotiations at a time when the rest of the league mostly settled into offseason mode.
“Dean Evason brings to coaching what he brought as a player — passion, hard work and tenacity — and I couldn’t be happier that he will serve as the next head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets,” Waddell said in a statement. “He has spent well over two decades in this league as a player, assistant coach and head coach and I believe that experience, combined with the outstanding person he is, will allow Dean to get the best out of our players and put us in a position to succeed as a team.”
Evason spent 4 1/2 seasons behind the bench with Minnesota, going 251-147-77 and qualifying for the playoffs in all four of his full seasons.
He was fired by the Wild early last season after a seven-game losing streak, but his .639 points percentage in the regular season — impressive, considering Minnesota’s crippling salary cap structure — is the seventh-highest among active coaches.
Terms of Evason’s contract were not immediately available, but the Blue Jackets may be getting a discount for the 2024-25 season. Evason reportedly made just under $2 million per year with the Wild, with a contract that runs through this coming season.
Depending on how Evason’s contract is written, the Blue Jackets could pay Evason less than the $2 million he is owed by the Wild this coming season, and the Wild would be required to supplement his earnings to achieve the “just under $2 million” figure.
It marks the third time the Blue Jackets have hired a coach in a similar situation.
Ken Hitchcock still had terms remaining with the Philadelphia Flyers when the Blue Jackets hired him in 2007, and John Tortorella had four seasons remaining on his deal with Vancouver when the Blue Jackets brought him to Columbus in 2015.
The Blue Jackets are hoping Evason has something else in common with Hitchcock and Tortorella. It was under those two veteran coaches that the Blue Jackets had almost all of their best seasons.
Hitchcock was the first coach to lead the franchise to the Stanley Cup playoffs (2009), and Tortorella not only steered them toward four straight playoff berths (2017-20), but also delivered the first series win with a four-game sweep of Tampa Bay in 2019.
In addition to Evason, the Blue Jackets considered former San Jose, Edmonton and Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan and former Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft as finalists for the job. However, talks with McLellan fell apart early in the process.
Evason’s regular-season success with Minnesota was undeniable, but if there was one complaint it was the Wild’s playoff record (8-15). His clubs never won a playoff series, losing once in the qualifying round (2020) and three times in the first round.
Evason had a long coaching career in the Canadian junior ranks and in the minor leagues before becoming a Wild assistant coach in 2018. Only 18 months later, he was promoted to head coach midway through the 2019-20 season when Bruce Boudreau was fired.
The Blue Jackets’ last two head coaches — Brad Larsen and Pascal Vincent — were first-time NHL head coaches, and the organization was intent on bucking that trend, even before Waddell was hired in late May.
Of course, the Jackets did hire a veteran coach last summer. Amid a swirl of criticism, the Blue Jackets hired Mike Babcock, who was accused of verbal and mental abuse by players with two of his previous NHL stops, Detroit and Toronto.
Babcock didn’t even make it to the start of training camp before he was fired for invading players’ privacy by scrolling through their cellphone pictures.
The Jackets turned the job over to assistant coach Vincent only four days before the start of training camp, and it didn’t go well. He was fired after only one season with a 27-43-12 record.
Waddell opted to keep on staff most of Vincent’s assistants — Mark Recchi, Steve McCarthy and Jared Boll — until a new coach was named. (A fourth assistant, Josef Boumedienne, had an expiring contract and was not retained.) Now, Evason will be allowed to bring in new assistants if he so chooses.
Evanson is not regarded as an authoritarian figure, quite like Hitchcock and Tortorella, but he’s a respected veteran coach who sets high standards and demands accountability on the ice and in the dressing room.
The Wild’s best season under Evason came in 2021-22, when they won 53 games and finished with a franchise-record 113 points, good for second place in the Central Division.
Evason was born in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and was raised in Brandon, approximately seven hours south in the province. He was a fifth-round pick (No. 89) in the 1982 NHL Draft, playing 803 games over 11 seasons with five clubs — Washington, Hartford, San Jose, Dallas and Calgary — before retiring in 1999.
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(Photo: Bruce Kluckhohn / Getty Images)
