The struggling Wild will have a new coach as they look to end their losing streak.
Dean Evason and assistant Bob Woods were fired Monday after the Wild lost their season-high seventh straight game.
Former Nashville and New Jersey coach John Hynes was tapped to take over while the franchise is in its worst slump in eight games from Jan. 23 to February. 13. 2016.
“I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with the Minnesota Wild organization,” Evason said via text message, “especially for the great fan base over the last few years.”
Bill Guerin, president of hockey operations, and Hynes will address the media on Tuesday, and Hynes will be behind the bench when the Wild face St. Louis at the Xcel Energy Center later that evening.
This change comes in an already challenging season for the Wild, who find themselves in a salary cap situation, but their impotence is still baffling. They fell behind in the standings despite returning with almost the same squad that fought for the top spot in the Central Division last season, scoring a total of 103 points.
Poor starts and spotty defense hurt them early, and a 6-2 win over Philadelphia a month ago left them four games behind. Then their special teams tanked while their offensive leaders fell short of expectations. The low point was an 8-3 win over Dallas on Nov. 12, which also included a franchise-record five power-play goals.
Two games in Sweden were more like the Wild’s, as was last Friday’s loss to Colorado, but a 4-1 draw in Detroit on Sunday felt like a step backwards, with untimely penalties and a lackluster offense handcuffing the Wild .
Kirill Kaprizov has scored six goals in 19 games and is well on his way to missing the 40 goals he scored last season. Matt Boldy has scored one goal but none in the 10 games he has played since returning from injury. Marcus Johansson also has one record, Marcus Foligno two and Frederick Gaudreau zero.
Goaltenders Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury each have a sub-.900 save percentage and Jake Middleton is minus-9 and a combined minus-12 with captain Jared Spurgeon in the six games together since Spurgeon healed from a preseason injury.
The Wild are 5-10-4, 30th in the NHL, and have the league’s worst penalty kill (66.7%), second-best goals-against rate (3.95) and league’s worst power play (16.2%).
“Obviously disappointed that our season started like this,” Foligno said via text message. “That’s not fair to our coaches. Dean and Woodsy are great people and have done a lot for me and this team in the years they have been here.”
Even the Wild’s wins were largely atypical of the DNA the team was set to retain after subtracting just one starter in Matt Dumba and adding only veteran Pat Maroon in the offseason. The minimal revenue suggests the team had used up nearly $15 million of its budget with the acquisitions of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.
With that asterisk looming over the team, Evason and his staff juggled the lines, tweaked the penalty kill and adjusted the game plan of the players on the ice to look for solutions, but none of these tactics worked and the frustration was palpable.
After the defeat in Detroit, Evason told reporters that “the same guys are not in power.”
When asked specifically about Boldy, Evason said, “We take responsibility, but sometimes a player needs to step up,” before adding, “Those guys get paid a lot of money to score goals and play better, and some guys.” are not.
“We will do what we can from our side, but we also have to look in the mirror.”
This decline in their offensive leaders is new, particularly Kaprizov and Boldy, but the penalty kill and power play issues are not; These are the same problems that led to first-round playoff exits the last two years.
Woods, who had been an assistant since 2017, oversaw the penalty kill and defense.
Darby Hendrickson, in his 14th season with the Wild, and Jason King, brought in in the offseason to run the power play, remain on the bench.
Evason, who was in the final season of a three-year contract, leaves the team after going 147-77-27 in five seasons. He was initially hired as an assistant in 2018 and became the team’s interim coach following the firing of Bruce Boudreau in 2020.
Later that year, Evason was promoted and led the Wild to four straight playoff berths but no series wins while employing a fast-paced, aggressive style that eventually evolved into opportunistic scoring in front of a no-nonsense defense.
Under his leadership, the Wild were at their best in the 2021-22 season as they set franchise records in wins (53), points (113) and goals (305), and Evason finished third in voting for the league’s best coach fourth place after being a Jack Adams Prize finalist last season.
With Hynes, the Wild get a coach who is familiar with Guerin.
Hynes, 48, sat on the bench for Pittsburgh’s American Hockey League affiliate while Guerin served as a player development coach and assistant general manager for the Penguins. The Warwick, Rhode Island native went on to coach the Devils for five seasons and then moved to the Predators in 2020, where he posted a 134-96-18 record before being fired after last season.
He will be the seventh head coach in Wild history, and this is the second coaching change in the NHL this season.
Edmonton traded Jay Woodcroft for Kris Knoblauch earlier this month as the Oilers faltered near the league’s basement despite being a Stanley Cup favorite.
Since then, Edmonton has passed through the Wilderness and as dire as the Wilderness’s situation is, they have the opportunity to make their own climb.
The gap between them and the playoff pace in the Western Conference is seven points, and many of the teams chasing the Wild are on the calendar.
But for things to turn around, the Wild have to shake off this horror first.
“It’s up to us players to get things under control again,” said Foligno.