Columbus Blue Jackets’ GM Don Waddell set out on a mission in his search for a head coach. The team was missing some key elements. In the hiring of Dean Evason, Waddell believes those missing pieces will fall into place.
Both Waddell and Evason spoke to the media on Tuesday for the first time since the hiring was announced. It was abundantly clear what both men want to bring to the Blue Jackets. In both cases, each component was said by name 11 times each over the course of the availability.
Those two components? Passion and structure.
Why Evason Was Hired
Until the hiring of Evason was announced on Monday, it was believed that three men were in the race. Evason, Todd McLellan and Jay Woodcroft were the finalists for the position. Since the team couldn’t agree to terms with McLellan, they brought both Evason and Woodcroft to town for another round of interviews.
Waddell said that he reached his final decision over the weekend. Evason is the new coach of the Blue Jackets. Here’s Waddell on why he stood out in the process.
“The one thing that Dean really brought to the table that I really believe after being here for a month and a half that we needed was the passion, the structure, the process that he’s gonna put in place to make players accountable,” Waddell said. “And we all talked about it back when I was hired. That was an important thing for this organization to be able to take the next step. We felt like we have some good young players who go with our veterans, but we need a better structure, and we’re very pleased to be able to announce that Dean Evason is our new head coach.”
Evason knows that in order for the Blue Jackets to become a consistent winner, they are going to have to go through a process. That starts with the passion and structure Waddell mentioned.
“(Thank you to the Blue Jackets) for trusting that I can come in as a head coach and continue building here in Columbus what ultimately we want to get accomplished and that’s the Stanley Cup,” Evason said. “There’s a process to that, obviously steps to that we are going to work through. But as Don just said, the accountability factor, the structure, the discipline, the details that again, we are just going to continue to build into our ultimate goal of winning the Stanley Cup.”
Passion
Evason checks a lot of the boxes that Waddell was looking for. Among those are experience at all levels. Evason was an NHL assistant coach for seven seasons with the Washington Capitals. He was the head coach of AHL Milwaukee for six seasons. Then he was the head coach of the Minnesota Wild for parts of five seasons.
But it was one thing in particular that stood out to Waddell even above all the experience.
“There’s a lot of them, but I think number one is passion to be a coach in the National Hockey League,” Waddell said of Evason. “Every time I spoke to Dean, he was the same way, excited about the potential opportunity. But if I answer a question about for whatever, style, anything, you could always see the passion come out of it. We spent some time together last week when he was here in town, it didn’t matter what topic we talked about. When he speaks, he’s got a lot of passion for what he does.”
Where does that passion come from for Evason? It starts from those that are closest to him.
“(When) my mom comes in town, I’ll let you meet her,” Evason said. “Doesn’t fall too far from the tree, right? She and my father played too. It’s just in you, right? I don’t know any other way. It’s always been that way. I’ve been fortunate because it’s allowed me to play in the National Hockey League. It’s probably allowed me to be sitting in this seat right now. My inner drive is as much as anyone’s external expectations of me. I have a huge expectations of myself and what I do and take great pride in that. And I look forward to bringing that passion, that desire, that drive to the Columbus Blue Jackets.”
Structure
The other thing Waddell mentioned in his opening statement was the need for structure. Anyone who’s watched the Blue Jackets over the last couple of seasons knows that structure is something that has been lacking for long stretches of time.
The Blue Jackets have struggled mightily keeping pucks out of their own net. Their structure wasn’t good enough to depend on to stop the bleeding.
With Evason, structure is at the top of the list of things to establish early and often. But within that structure, he leaves room for some tweaks and some creativity as long as it stays within the foundation.
“I really think you have to have a structure. You have to have how you’re going to play the game as far as your systematic stuff,” Evason said. “But then it needs to be tweaked by who your personnel is and how your team is is built. But you have to have a foundation. You have to know how you’re gonna play. And our team will play with great detail, with great structure, but we’ll also give them the opportunity to be creative in the offensive zone and through the neutral zone.”
“The game is made of mistakes. You gotta build your system to allow the players to make those mistakes and still give them a chance to have success. So we’ll have that structure put in place for sure, through video, through teaching, through training camp, through practice, through preseason. And hopefully we’re dialed right in for game one because we’re playing somewhere in game one that I am familiar with. Hopefully we’ll have that right away, but then we will tweak it for our roster and who is playing on our hockey team. So I think there’s a little bit of both involved in that.”
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Evason hopes that the structure will help build the atmosphere both in the room and on the ice to get the Blue Jackets to where they want to go. In his eyes, it doesn’t matter who is in that room. No matter if it’s an established veteran or a player on their entry-level contract, success will come from working hard and playing a team concept.
“The first thing is you have to implement your structure and your team first mentality,” Evason said. “I don’t care if you’re a first-year player, if you haven’t played a game in National Hockey League, if you’re sitting in that dressing room, you’re part of the Columbus Blue Jackets. And each player has to help the other player have success. And that’s what we will instill. There’ll be no individual thought processes once we get into that dressing room.”
“It’s I don’t care how old you are, I don’t care how many games you’ve played. You put that jersey on and we’re going out to compete together to get to our ultimate goal. So that’s what I’m looking forward to. I’m looking forward to getting to in that room with this group and creating that atmosphere, that winning atmosphere that we’re never gonna get outworked when we go into a building or teams come in here. They know that if they don’t work hard, they lose. Simple as that. Our hockey club will work hard each and every night. We might get beat on some skill set one night or another, but we can never get out worked. So I’m looking forward to that challenge.”
