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Columbus Blue Jackets saga ends with hiring of coach Dean Evason. Sigh of relief? | Arace
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- Columbus Blue Jackets saga ends with hiring of coach Dean Evason. Sigh of relief? | Arace
Blue Jackets fans have spent the summer pacing around, phone in hand, waiting for word on the coach. Don Waddell, the new president of hockey operations/general manager, came into office the day after Memorial Day. Father's Day, the Summer Solstice, the NHL Draft and Independence Day came and went. And the search continued.
You began to wonder if Waddell would have his man by training camp – a cringe-worthy thought in Columbus , given what happened last year. You began to wonder if Waddell, for all of his 30-plus years of front-office experience, was waffling. Or if the chief of business ops, Mike Priest, was gumming up the works with his abacus. And when will Kirill Marchenko get a contract? Cole Sillinger ? Kent Johnson ? This was supposed to be the dawn of a new era, and it was feeling like the decades-long status quo still had its noose around the neck of the franchise.
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The wait is finally over.
Waddell has his man, and it is Dean Evason . The Blue Jackets made the announcement Monday .
My first reaction comes from a personal, hometown angle: It's never a bad thing to call in an old Whaler. There was a secret sauce that was slathered on Hartford in the mid-1980s. The 1986 Whalers came within a Game 7 overtime goal of beating rookie goaltender Patrick Roy and the Montreal Canadians in the Wales Conference final. For the Habs , it opened up an easy path to the Stanley Cup. A year later, the Whalers won the Adams Division and were upset by the Quebec Nordiques in the first round of the playoffs. Evason played on those young-and-coming Whalers teams.
ST PAUL, MN - NOVEMBER 01: Head coach Dean Evason of the Minnesota Wild looks on against the Montreal Canadiens in the third period of the game at Xcel Energy Center on November 1, 2022 in St Paul, Minnesota. The Wild defeated the Canadiens 4-1. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)
Among his teammates of that era: Kevin Dineen (original Blue Jacket, former NHL head coach, now coaching AHL Utica); Ray Ferraro (ESPN/ABC's top color analyst); Ron Francis (GM of the Seattle Kraken ); Mike Liut (Octagon Hockey agency executive); Joel Quenneville (second all-time in NHL coaching wins with 969); Brad Shaw (former Jackets assistant, now with John Tortorella in Philadelphia ); Dave Tippett (648 coaching victories with three NHL teams). I can go on here ...
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It was the cradle of coaching, executive and television talent. An incubator made of vulcanized rubber.
"It doesn't make sense that all of these guys would come out of one locker room. It really doesn't," Ferraro said. "I think we all have a pride that we came from one place. We were just kind of learning life together. It just kind of all fit."
Evason centered the third line. According to a number of ex-Whalers, he was a cool-headed, no-nonsense player who punched the clock every night. He has carried the same qualities as a coach.
"There's nothing of finesse with Dean," Ferraro said. "I mean that in a really good way. He's very direct. I'd be stunned if, at any point in time, anyone says, 'I didn't know what was expected of me.' Dean is direct."
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Daryl Reaugh played junior hockey with Evason for two years at WHL Kamloops, and for a year with Evason in Hartford. Reaugh, a longtime color analyst for the Dallas Stars (and assorted national networks) has kept close tabs Evason's coaching career.
"Even back in juniors, he just looked like he was going to be a coach," Reaugh said. "He strikes me as a good mix of old-school core values, but with a new-school ability to relate to the players."
Evason spent dozen years as a coach in the WHL and the AHL and as an assistant with the Washington Capitals before he got his shot, in 2019, with the Minnesota Wild . He posted a 144-77-27 record with four playoff appearances over four-plus seasons with the Wild. Injuries, slumping players, a desperate coach trying to pull a team out of an early season free fall − and the Wild's place in the seventh ring of salary-cap hell − led to his sacking in November.
Minnesota's headcoach Dean Evason reacts as Minnesotas Brandon Duhaime (L-R), Connor Dewar and Pat Maroon look on during the NHL Global Series Sweden ice hockey match between Toronto Maple Leafs and Minnesota Wild at Avicii Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, on November 19, 2023. (Photo by Claudio BRESCIANI / TT News Agency / AFP) / Sweden OUT (Photo by CLAUDIO BRESCIANI/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images)
"As a friend, I'm super happy for him to get this job," Ferraro said. "He's a dyed-in-the-wool coach. I think he's an excellent coach. What's super important, I think also: He has grown and learned from his time on the job, from his long stint in the AHL to his time in Minnesota. He has adapted. He has changed his messaging. I hear it in the way he adds detail when he talks to the players. I hear it in the media. I see it in the way his teams play.
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"One thing Columbus talks about is building a culture. A big part of that is you've got to work. No shortcuts. That's one of the things that is easy for Dean because that's how he's built. Just that part will be very evident. And they will be organized."
Ferraro played for Waddell when Waddell was the GM of the tight-budgeted Atlanta Thrashers. Ferraro believes Waddell is a good fit in Columbus. He thinks Evason is the right man behind the bench at this time and place.
“I thought we’d have a lot more trouble scoring goals," Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell admitted. Columbus is averaging 3.36 goals per game.
"When you look at Dean when he talks, you will see how much he cares," Ferraro said. "It will be evident in two seconds. It will also be evident that it's not about him. Players today can smell guys that are full of it really quick, and they will not find that about Dean. They will not."
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Ferraro, who has a great gift for objectivity when he's breaking down a game for a national audience, might be skewing toward subjectivity when he talks about his old teammate. I'm definitely biased here.
The coaching search, as it stretched out over two (nearly three) full-moon cycles, seemed like it would never end. The process seemed so Blue Jackety. Now that it's done, it feels right.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Don Waddell taps Dean Evason to coach Columbus Blue Jackets | Arace
