Columbus Blue Jackets hire Dean Evason as their next coach

The Columbus Blue Jackets hired Dean Evason as coach Monday, filling the NHL’s final vacancy two months before training camp begins.

Evason, 59, will become Columbus’ third coach in as many seasons — excluding the hiring and firing of Mike Babcock on the eve of training camp last September. The team said Evason agreed to a multi-year contract.

The Blue Jackets’ new general manager, Don Waddell, fired Pascal Vincent shortly after he took over the organization’s hockey operations department. Evason ultimately emerged as the top candidate in the search for a coach to replace Vincent.

“(Evason) has spent over two decades in this league as a player, assistant coach and head coach and I believe that experience, combined with the exceptional personality that he is, will allow Dean to get the best out of our players and enable us to succeed as a team,” Waddell said in a statement.

Evason coached the Minnesota Wild for parts of the past five seasons before being fired and replaced by John Hynes in November. This is his second head coaching job in the league, a career that also included stints as an assistant at Washington and then Minnesota, where he replaced Bruce Boudreau midway through the season in 2020.

In this role, Evason is tasked with helping end the Blue Jackets’ postseason drought. They have missed the playoffs each of the last four years and have yet to advance past the second round in 24 seasons as a franchise.

“There’s a great core and a lot of young talent on this team,” Evason said. “I’m really looking forward to working with this group and helping us become a team that plays extremely hard and competes at the highest level.”

Evason was a center during his active career, playing in over 800 games for Washington, Hartford, San Jose, Dallas and Calgary from 1983 through 1996.