ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Wild fired coach Dean Evason and assistant Bob Woods on Monday after losing seven straight games and 14 of their first 19 starts, free falling to the bottom of the NHL standings.
General manager Bill Guerin announced the moves late Monday afternoon, and soon afterward, the Wild announced that NHL veteran John Hynes will be taking the helm. Hynes will be officially introduced as Evason's replacement during a press conference Tuesday at 9 a.m. KARE 11 plans to carry it live on our social media platforms.
Hynes most recently served as head coach of the Nashville Predators and previously was at the helm of the New Jersey Devils.
Evason, 59, had three full seasons in charge of the Wild, who gave him his first head coaching job in the NHL on Feb. 14, 2020, when Bruce Boudreau was fired and he was promoted from his top assistant role. Evason went 147-77-27 in 251 regular season games, and led the Wild to consecutive 100-plus point seasons in 2021-22 and 2022-23.
But postseason success was evasive for Evason. His playoff record was just 8-15 and the Wild did not win a single playoff series with him at the reigns. They lost a best-of-five series to Vancouver in the qualifying round during the pandemic-shortened year, then dropped best-of-seven first-round matchups with Vegas in 2021, St. Louis in 2022 and Dallas in 2023.
The 2021-22 ending was the most disappointing as the Wild posted a franchise-record 113 points in the regular season for the second-best record in the Western Conference behind eventual champion Colorado. They lost to the Blues in six games.
“Dean did an excellent job during his tenure with the Minnesota Wild, especially as head coach of our team,” Guerin said in a statement distributed by the club. “I am very thankful for his hard work and dedication to our organization. I would also like to thank Bob for his hard work during his time as an assistant coach with the Wild. I wish Dean, Bob and their families all the best in the future.”
Evason is already the second NHL coach fired this season after the Edmonton Oilers dismissed Jay Woodcroft and replaced him with Kris Knoblauch. The Oilers have won four of seven since.
Not much has gone well for the Wild (5-10-4) this season, after bringing back largely the same roster due to salary cap constraints stemming from the contract buyouts two years ago of franchise cornerstones Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. The club has suffered from slow starts in most games, forcing them to abandon their tighter defense structure in order to score goals while in catch-up mode.
The Wild has also been extremely undisciplined, taking unnecessary penalties that put their porous penalty kill unit on the ice far more than it should be. Currently, the Wild have given up more power-play goals than any team in the NHL. Bob Woods, the assistant coach in charge of the defense and penalty kill, paid for that poor performance with his job.
“Tough to see Dean and [Woods] go,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno told The Athletic. “Both great people and did a lot of good with their time here. At the end of the day, it’s on us and it sucks to put coaches in this position. We need to be better and we are working towards that every day. Wish them nothing but the best, both guys were very influential in my career and have to thank them a lot. Our jobs as players is to keep moving forward and to win the next game… that’s what we are going to try to do tomorrow against the Blues.”
Matt Boldy, who scored 31 goals last season, has scored just once 12 games into the first season of his $49 million, seven-year contract. Kirill Kaprizov — the team's highest-paid player at $9 million per season — has six goals in 19 games. Evason had been critical of both of the young stars, imploring them to elevate their performances. The Wild are 22nd in the league in goals per game (2.95).
Only the lowly San Jose Sharks have allowed more goals per game than Minnesota (3.95), with Filip Gustavsson and Marc-André Fleury struggling and the defense in front of them uncharacteristically flimsy. Defenseman Jared Spurgeon, the team captain, missed the first 13 games with an upper-body injury and has no points in six games since his return. The Wild's penalty kill is last in the league with a woeful 66.7% success rate.
Adding to the misery on Monday was a two-game suspension issued by the NHL to center Ryan Hartman for a tripping foul in the last game.
Still, it's early enough that the Wild and new coach Hynes can turn this around and climb back into contention for the playoffs. They've reached the postseason in 10 of the last 11 years. Eighth-place Seattle is just 8-9-5, seven points ahead of Minnesota.
Hynes is 284-255-63 in eight NHL seasons. Nashville fired him on May 30, six weeks after missing the playoffs in 2022-23. The Preds lost in the opening round in each of three previous years, starting in 2020 when he was hired midseason to replace the fired Peter Laviolette.
The Devils fired Hynes about a month before he was plucked off the market by the Predators.
Wild General Manager Bill Guerin has a history with Hynes, serving as GM when Hynes coached Wilkes-Barre in the Pittsburgh Penguins system. Above that, Guerin’s most trusted adviser, Ray Shero, was New Jersey’s GM when the Devils hired Hynes for his first NHL head coaching job.
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