The Columbus Blue Jackets enter the 2024-25 season with new leadership. Last week, GM Don Waddell stopped by and discussed the upcoming season and provided updates as we count down to the start of Training Camp.
Today, it’s head coach Dean Evason who stopped by. Like Waddell, Evason’s early time with the Blue Jackets has been quite hectic given how late in the summer he was named head coach. But as you will see, he and his staff have put in the work and are in a good place to get the season going.
Evason spoke with us for 20 minutes on Tuesday morning while he was at the airport. He opened up about a variety of topics, including his top priorities at the start of his tenure, what went into naming his coaching staff, and preparing for training camp. He also opened up on some of his philosophies when it comes to how he’ll run camp, how he handles player interactions on lineup decisions once the season gets going and much more.
Here is our full conversation.
Dean Evason Q&A
THW: Thanks for doing this, Dean. How have the first few weeks on the job gone and what have you tried to prioritize that you wanted to accomplish during that time?
Evason: “Well, it’s a little hectic because it’s a little bit later in the summer. So, we’ve picked away. The first priority was putting the staff together which we think we’ve done a fantastic job of getting quality people and very knowledgeable coaches put together. And then just kind of familiarizing ourselves with the team talking to the players. And then now we’ve taken the next step into getting the training camp structure set up so that we’re in a good place to be detailed and tight when we get to camp.”
THW: Has there been a lot of adjustment that you’ve had to make in terms of that preparation because of the condensed schedule?
Evason: “No, it’s just a matter of taking the steps right. You don’t want to jump too far ahead. So we’re always just going one step at a time. I think if you try to get it all done in a shorter term, it doesn’t bode well because you get ahead of yourself and then you forget about a few details. We’re just trying to do everything step by step and hopefully we’ve done the right thing and we’re on the right pace to get it all done.”
Rounding Out Coaching Staff
THW: You mentioned the staff, Mike Haviland up from Cleveland to join your staff. You’re obviously familiar with Scott Ford and then you decided to retain both Jared Boll and Steve McCarthy. Just what stood out in some of those decisions to retain Boll and McCarthy, but then bring on Haviland and Ford?
Evason: “A lot goes into it. Without going into great detail, as a head coach you do the research, you talk to people that you know and that you trust that have worked with the personnel that you’re bringing on board. Then it moves to the interview process of speaking to them via phone or FaceTime or what have you. And then physically meeting them and hopefully all their accomplishments and their resume matches up with their personality. Their team first mentality has been a big thing for me. We want good people within the organization. But clearly, we want people that have been around, which all four of them, including Nick Backstrom, have been in the league or in hockey for a long time and have a great amount of experience.”
THW: Have you been able to establish what roles the coaches will have yet, such as who would operate in the power play, defense, penalty kill…?
Evason: “I have, and I’ve been asked this question a lot. There’s a lot of responsibility and to go into all of them at great detail is difficult. The bottom line that I’ve said to other people is that, one thing that I stress to media and I also stress to the coaching staff is that it’s our systems, it’s our special teams. It’s not one guy because one guy heads it up or does the majority of the meetings. It doesn’t mean it’s his power play. It’s the Columbus Blue Jackets power play. And honestly, ultimately, it falls on me as the head coach if it messes up. I don’t like when people say it’s so and so’s power play, or it’s so-and-so’s PK. It’s our penalty kill, it’s our power play, it’s our D zone, it’s our offensive zone, it’s our neutral zone and we’ll do it together. The staff want the same as I want. I want our hockey club to be close and tight and together as a team. Our coaching staff has to be the exact same way.”
THW: We’re talking the morning after the Patrik Laine trade went down. When we spoke to Don Waddell last week, he said you and Laine had a conversation. What kind of a conversation was it and then what thoughts do you have on Jordan Harris?
Evason: “Well, I and our coaching staff won’t get involved in trades. I don’t know if you want to call it compartmentalize or what have you. Our job is to coach the team that we have in front of us. Don Waddell and his circle, the pro scouts, the assistant GMs, they make that call with our input if they are looking for it. I spoke to Patrik about coming to camp as I spoke to every other player and whoever comes through our door. It’s our job as coaches to coach them and to get the best out of them and give us the best opportunity to win games. I didn’t have any expectations of who was going to be in our lineup or who wasn’t going to be in our lineup. It’s when we get to training camp, we’ve got our line combinations set up as of the last few days. And we will try to find chemistry within those lines and the D pairs in order to put our best team on the ice and best opportunity to win hockey games. As far as Harris, I don’t know a whole lot. We’re diving into watching video as we do with every player and we’ll slot him in where we see that he fits best for our hockey club.”
THW: Have you been able to talk to all of the Blue Jackets to this point?
Evason: Pretty much everybody. There’s a couple of the guys in Russia that have been out of the country that I haven’t spoke to yet, but pretty much every player, yes.
THW: That would include Kent Johnson. Do you have an indication of if he’ll be ready for training camp?
Evason: “I don’t have like a definitive yes or no but yeah, we are expecting him to start training camp for us.”
Evason’s Training Camp & Systems
THW: Dean, how are you going to operate camp? How will having eight games and limited practices affect the way that you try to operate the camp in terms of the decisions you have to make and what the coaching staff has to do to in order to be ready?
Evason: “I think there is quite a few practices on the days off and then the days that there’s game days. There’s a team that’s going to play and basically a team that’s not. I think we have 40 something players. We’re going to have two teams. Our structure is we’ve got three days, excuse me, four days before game one. We’re going to D-zone coverage and penalty kill. Neutral zone, power play, O-zone the following day with PP vs. PK. And then the fourth day is going to be an intersquad game that will lead into that fifth day and our first exhibition game.”
THW: You talked about your systems at your introductory presser, but then you mentioned tweaking it to fit the roster. Looking at what you had with Minnesota and now what you have with the Blue Jackets, do you feel as though that there have to be a couple more tweaks because you have a bit of a different roster here?
Evason: “No, I don’t. I think the hockey club is built with many different dimensions. I think we’ve got a very well-rounded hockey club that has skill and bite and offense and defense. I just think we need to place or put the structure in place in order for our group to have success. Now we need to build some relationships to get the best out of the players individually. But our structure will be set. I’m very big and our staff is going to be very big on details and structure. But we’re going to allow them also to play the game freely from there. And if they’re going to make mistakes, they’re going to make aggressive mistakes.”
THW: From your experience, Dean, how long does it take someone to be able to adapt and learn your system? Do they think for many players it might be something they’ve seen for the first time?
Evason: “That’s why you have training camp and why there’s video presentations. Then it moves forward into practice and then once you get those first couple of exhibition games, now we can teach. And I think what a lot of times I think at this level, people forget that we still need to teach. And that doesn’t mean just our systems. But you need to continually teach how to play the game at the highest level. We think that if a guy gets to the NHL, he doesn’t need any more video or he doesn’t need any more meetings as he is ready to play. I think coaches at our level have to continue to do that. And like I said, I don’t think it takes very long. We go through those first four days of teaching our systems. Then we will clearly break camp into our group and Cleveland’s group. And then once we get some video as far as our exhibition games, now we can continue to teach through that and then just move forward with our system structure.”
THW: What is your philosophy when it comes to lineup decisions? I know you’re not going to talk to the media about that a whole lot, but just when it comes to an individual player, what is your approach? Do you let your assistants handle talking to them? Do you personally talk to them? Just what is your individual approach when someone doesn’t agree with something that you decide?
Evason: “The biggest thing for me is honesty and upfront and doing it personally. As an ex-player, nobody wants to walk through or walk into the dressing room on game night and see that their name’s not on the board. Communication is a major thing for me and will be for the staff. I will speak to the players. I mean there’s situations where sometimes the assistant has to go speak and that’s why we build the relationships with the players. But as far as making personnel decisions on a game-to-game basis or playing minutes or playing that given night, I believe it has to come from the head coach. It has to come face to face.”
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THW: Have you had a chance to talk to Trent Vogelhuber in Cleveland yet about if the Monsters will play the same system so if there is a callup, a player can seamlessly enter your lineup?
Evason: “I think you hit it on the head. Trent was in our Zoom video meeting yesterday. Trent and his staff will all be in our video meetings prior to training camp and yes, they will play the same system as we play. Certainly, their staff needs to have the freedom to coach and make tweaks as they see fit, but the guts of our system, how we play in all areas of the game have to be in line. There’s nothing worse than a player coming up and trying to learn the system when you’re in a situation where you’re nervous, it’s your first game and now you’ve got to learn your new system. It gives not only the player the opportunity to have success, but obviously it gives the Columbus Blue Jackets an opportunity to have success from there.”
THW: And going back to that introductory press conference again. You were asked about where you thought that you would improve. You’ve had time to reflect on your time in Minnesota. What do you think will make things different this go around with the Blue Jackets? What will you take from all your previous experience into this new one?
Evason: “Honestly, you take all your experiences and hopefully you learn from not only the good ones but the bad ones. And just going through the meetings with our coaching staff now, it’s wonderful to already debate different things that we want to do in the defensive zone and in the neutral zone structurally. And then going through the American Hockey League and then in Minnesota, you do little things that change the atmosphere in the dressing room into a positive setting and that’s what you want to do, right? I mean our job is to get the players in the most comfortable position and confident position that they can go out and have success on the ice because obviously we are support staff to support the group, the players to get on the ice and win hockey games.”
THW: And finally, what can fans expect to see from your team once the regular season gets underway and once it’s all systems go?
Evason: Work, work based, aggressive pressure hockey. It’s not defensive hockey. It’s not offensive hockey. It’s both. And we want to be a well-rounded hockey club that plays hard every single night. The one thing that we will stress to our group is that we might get beat by some skill or something different. But we will never get outworked on any given night. And I think that’s what the fans will grow to love about our group. Expect that each and every day.”