Dean Evason and the Columbus Blue Jackets aren’t as far away as you think
Most of the praise heaped on Dean Evason after his appointment as the next head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets has centered on his strong personality and magnetic leadership qualities, attributes the Jackets sorely need after a nightmare 2023-24 season.
Ray Ferraro told the Columbus Dispatch that his old Hartford Whalers teammate is as forthright as they come. “When you look at Dean when he talks, you will see how much he cares,” Ferraro said. “Players today can smell guys that are full of it really quick, and they will not find that about Dean.”
Evason’s new boss, Columbus GM and president of hockey operations Don Waddell, highlighted his dedication to the game. “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.
Those plaudits are standard for coaching hires but will come as a relief to fans in dire need of the professionalism and accountability they have missed since John Tortorella resigned in 2021.
Columbus hired Stanley Cup winner Mike Babcock last summer on the condition that he’d changed during his four-year exile from the NHL, only to ax him after more creepy antics. Brad Larsen and Pascal Vincent, the former Columbus assistants who bookended the Babcock fiasco, never looked ready for the top job. Worse yet, they struggled to rein in the three-ring circus that dominated the latter part of Jarmo Kekalainen’s tenure as GM.
In Evason, the Blue Jackets get the experience and presence Vincent and Larsen lacked without the baggage of Babcock. “[Evason] has spent well over two decades in this league as a player, assistant coach and head coach,” Waddell said. “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.”
Like Waddell, who ran one of the NHL’s tightest ships in Carolina from 2018 until last season, Evason’s a career hockey man with decades of experience but enough modern sensibility to remain relevant in today’s game. His no-nonsense demeanor worked wonders for the Minnesota Wild (58.56 winning percentage in 251 games) and will make him the right guy to splash cold water on a roster that has gotten too used to losing.
That said, for players to buy into a new coach, they need to see results. Columbus hasn’t gotten them for four seasons running, finishing no higher than sixth in their division under three (or, with Babcock, four) different bench bosses. Evason’s scary facial expressions and comical overuse of swear words will keep his men in line, but will he improve the Blue Jackets’ long-term outlook on the ice? There are enough encouraging parallels from his time in the Twin Cities to suggest the answer is yes.
One of the major storylines of the Evason era in Minnesota was the team’s dire cap situation; dual buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise followed his first full season at the helm and prevented major additions for the remainder of his tenure. Forced to effectively ice one of the cheapest rosters in the NHL, Evason coaxed middle-of-the-lineup results or better from former AHL All-Stars like Ryan Hartman (28.5 G, 59.32 P pace from 2021-23), Freddy Gaudreau (17.12 G, 42.55 P pace from 2021-23), and Jake Middleton (19:02 ATOI, +15 in 2022-23) while squeezing career-best production out of veterans Mats Zuccarello (79 P in 2021-22) and Marcus Foligno (23G in 2021-22).
Save for the Sean Monahan deal, Waddell has spent his summer clearing out dead weight. Evason is once again expected to make the best of the cards he has been dealt, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Monahan (26 G, 59 P), franchise defenseman Zach Werenski (career-high 57 P in 70 GP), and captain Boone Jenner (2024 All-Star) will give the Flin Flon native a core of two-way special teamers to rely on. Working on Damon Severson and Ivan Provorov’s puck security on the second pair and getting Johnny Gaudreau back to point-a-game production would only expand his lineup options.
Provorov, Severson, and Gaudreau each came to Ohio with expectations they have failed to live up to. ‘Johnny Hockey’ has been especially disappointing; he went from the third runner-up for the Hart Trophy in 2022 to a 60-point player last season. If Evason can restore the distressed trio, along with problem goaltender Elvis Merzlikins, to its career baseline, Columbus will pick up an additional 15 points at the very least. He did more with less for the Wild before injuries and the cap crunch caught up with him last season.
The interesting part of Evason’s ability to work with seasoned players is not whether the Jackets can limp from the Metropolitan Division’s basement and into the murky middle, but what it means for their host of elite prospects.
Sillinger and Kent Johnson have shown flashes of the potential that made them lottery selections in their respective drafts. The Russian trio of Kirill Marchenko (44 G in 137 career GP), Yegor Chinakhov (16 G, 29 P in 56 GP), and Dmitri Voronkov (18G, 83 hits) was a bright spot in an otherwise dreary season. Center Adam Fantilli, the No. 3 overall pick in 2023 who scored .55 points per game as a rookie, is one of the top pro prospects in hockey. Ditto for blueliner David Jiricek, whose path to playing time is wide open with Jake Bean, Andrew Peeke, and Adam Boqvist gone.
Evason deployed the only two elite prospects he’s worked with at the NHL level, Matt Boldy and Brock Faber, in high-leverage roles out of the gate. Boldy found immediate success opposite star playmaker Kevin Fiala, collecting 39 points in 47 games as a rookie in 2021-22, while Faber was partnering with shutdown defenseman Jonas Brodin by the time the Wild fired Evason.
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the 59-year-old take a similar approach with the Blue Jackets. By deploying Marchenko as Monahan and Gaudreau’s trigger man on the first line, throwing the righty Jiricek into the deep end with Werenski, using Jenner’s size and strength to open up ice for Fantilli, etc., Evason can get the most out of his experienced players without blocking the development of younger contributors. Vincent struggled to strike that balance, which will be key to fixing Columbus’s would-be stars while making new ones.
The Blue Jackets and Waddell could have prioritized development in their coaching search by going with an AHL standout like Marco Sturm. They could have pursued an experienced motivator like Bruce Boudreau to get their struggling vets back on track. Instead, they bet Evason will find a fruitful middle ground, squeezing more out of Gaudreau and Severson without hampering the growth of Fantilli, Jiricek, and Co.
If they’re right, they might be closer to returning to relevance than anyone thinks.