Dean Evason Fired; John Hynes Named Wild Head Coach

The Minnesota Wild were in a tough spot, 29th in the league and the second lowest in the division, so they fired Dean Evason. Hynes has stepped in. Let’s look at the story behind it all and their new coach.

The Minnesota Wild were failing, sitting 29th in the league and the 2nd lowest in their division. Around Thanksgiving, they suffered a terrible 3-8 loss to their division rival, the Stars. Soon after, they lost 3 games straight, extending their losing streak to 7 games. By now, general manager Bill Guerin had had enough. He decided to fire Dean and the assistant coach Bob Woods, though Evason brought the attention.

After they fired Evason, the Wild won their next game against the St. Louis Blues by a score of 3-1. After interviewing sources who attended or watched the game, interviewers gathered intel on the play style and techniques of Hynes.

Hynes’ strategy is interesting. It differs from that of his predecessor. Dean tended to use dump and chase and defensively focused play. Hynes chose a more offensive-based strategy with old habits of defensive play.

The game went something like this; in the first period, the Blues let up an early goal at 2:41 into the first period by Joel Eriksson Ek off a one-timer from a sharp angle. Shortly after, Colton Parayko tied the game at the 10:30 mark with a shot from the right circle. To seal the first period, with 1:50 left, the Wild struck again when a bouncing puck rolled out to Fredrick Gaudreau who roofed it from the right circle to get his first goal of the season.

The second period saw no scoring, so it was still 2-1 when the third period started. Midway through the third period, the Wild got to test their penalty kill when Matt Boldy took a four-minute double minor for drawing blood on a high stick. The Wild were perfect and only allowed 2 shots on the Blues power play. Finally, in the dying minutes of the third period, Boldy received a breakaway pass and buried his shot to bring us to the final score of 3-1.

Now you may be wondering “Why was this victory over the Blues important?” It’s important because the Wild wanted to show that acquiring Bill Hynes was a good idea. Winning a game was very important for them at that time.

Nowadays, the Wild are past the winter break and are doing better with their new coach, and not to say they had a light schedule. It was tough. They played teams like Boston, Calgary, Nashville, and Vancouver, all of which were high in the league. The Wild now intend to reach a playoff spot after the break.