New Wild Head Coch John Hynes.

ST. PAUL –  What do you call a surprise that isn't really a surprise? I don't know but it wasn't hard to see the dismissal of former Head Coach Dean Evason coming down the pike. When your club has only won five of its first 19 games something is going to give or change and that's what occurred on Monday when Wild GM Bill Guerin relieved Deano of his duties.

It's a whole other topic but I have opined this season that I felt it would be unfair to terminate Dean with a roster that isn't performing.  

If it's clear that it's the coaching that's one thing, but this roster wasn't producing for Dean where they had in the past. Did matters change that quickly? Why? How much did the cap restrictions harm Dean's ability to win this season? After all, $15 mil can get you a handful of strong supporting players, a couple of upper-level stars or one huge superstar.  

I am compelled to say this about Evason, most who know me know that I've said many times that I didn't see Dean as a coach who could bring a Stanley Cup win to The State of Hockey.  

Let me define that a little more here. I've nothing personal against Dean, I found him to be a coach whose passion endeared him to the Wild fanbase and actually to me too. He is a most likable man who has dedicated his working life to the sport that I love. That he was a guy whose passion led him to make sure that the NHL's officials knew how he felt when they were struggling their way through calling a game also served to elevate his status with the fans.  

Everyone around the game knows it isn't an easy sport to officiate but when the stripes struggle we don't hesitate to let them know they are having a bad night. Some coaches appeared to be fixated on that to the point that the league made it an agenda item at a preseason meeting of coaches, league officials and management people. Dean was a big offender in that regard but probably not the worst.  

And I do consider him to be a full-fledged NHL coach. In fact I don't expect him to be out from behind the bench for long. He will get another shot at it. What I mean when I say that I don't see him delivering a Cup to whoever might be his employer is that there are a finite number of coaches who have that within them to navigate an entire Stanley Cup tourney and come out on the other side of it as a Champion. Yes having the roster for that is the biggest prerequisite, but then you have to have a coach that can guide them through everything they will encounter within a tournament. In my experience that is a really small group. I'd be quite happy for Dean if he got one, I'm just not sure if he can take a club that far.        

Evason had a 147-77-27 record in 251 regular season games. His teams went 8-15 in the playoffs however, and were first-round playoff casualties each season. (lost in the qualifying round in 2020) Evasons career coaching record will show an excellent regular season coach who couldn't follow it with playoff success. Enter John Hynes.  

Hynes is an old acquaintance of Guerins. They met in 1998 via the USA Hockey NTDP and have been friends since. Hynes worked for the Pittsburgh Penguins during Guerin's tenure there, serving as an assistant coach of their AHL affiliate Wilkes-Barre Baby Pens before being named the Head Coach in 2010. He would eventually get the Head coaching spot with the New Jersey Devils in 2015, and then the Nashville Predators in the 2019-20 season. The Preds dismissed him at the end of last season.  

His AHL regular season coaching record was stellar but he had indifferent results in the postseason. His NHL regular season record will show him at 284-255-63 but I believe it's fair to say that both New Jersey and Nashville were going through some roster upheaval when he was with both organizations. His postseason NHL record is another eyebrow-raiser for me with Hynes showing a record of 4-15 in 4 different appearances.   

I'm compelled to ask if Guerin is just shuffling the deck chairs or if Hynes can indeed take The State of Hockey to the promised land of a big silver trophy. I don't know. Hynes arrived in the Metro Monday night while most Twin Cities sports fans were distracted by the MNF game featuring the Vikings and Bears. (21-20 L) Tuesday eve they met the STL Blues at the 'X' and came away with a 3-1 win. Last night in the Music City they met up with Hynes former club and bested them in a 6-1 paint brushing.   Is this all because of the sudden change behind the bench? If the club quit performing for Dean, why? Was he too tough or not tough enough? Had the players tuned him out? Was the creativity the coaches needed to work their way through the myriad of regular season challenges exhausted? We'll probably find that out in due time but I believe it's part of the reasoning involved there. The staff seemed like it could never pull away from its special team problems. There was also the playoff goaltending debacle when Marc Andre Fleury arrived right before the 2022 playoffs via trade from Chicago.  

I feel that Guerin had a hand in this, but with Cam Talbot established as the go-to tender during the regular season a rotation was forged with Kaapo Kahkonen. Guerin desired to strengthen the tandem prior to the tournament and turned to old teammate and friend Fleury. With the Flower still settling in with his new club, they opted to start him as the playoffs began and lost Game One in a 4-0 shutout. They won the next two tilts for a 2-1 series lead.    

Evason stuck with Fleury but the team gave up five goals two games in a row before deciding to play Talbot in a Game Six elimination tilt. At this point Talbot had sat for ten days and the Blues sent the Wild to the golf course with a 5-1 win. I believe that Guerin was either pushing Dean to play Fleury or that Dean felt obligated to play him after the work Guerin had put in to obtain him. I can't believe that they lost confidence in Talbot.   

Every staff has their strengths and weaknesses and in time we will know Hynes'. In the meantime the word on Hynes is that he is extremely detailed in all that he does, and can read his players well, giving them the encouragement or boot on the hinder they might need from time to time. When I compare his career coaching stats with Evason there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference, so color me a bit skeptical at this time. It may not matter anyway. There is still one more season of cap hades to go through and it has had a definable negative impact on the team. I'm hoping for better times ahead! PEACE