Dean Evason not the only one to blame for Blue Jackets’ struggles

The Columbus Blue Jackets sent shockwaves through the hockey world on Monday night when they announced the firing of former head coach Dean Evason and the hiring of Rick Bowness as his replacement.

The Blue Jackets, who occupy last place in a tightly-packed Eastern Conference, are off to a 19-19-7 start in a season that they hoped would mark their return to being a Stanley Cup Playoff team.

Now, general manager Don Waddell is hoping that Bowness can provide the spark needed to right the ship and start a climb up the standings to make that goal a reality.

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed why Evason was far from the sole cause of the issues the Jackets have faced this year.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It was a stunning piece of news yesterday out of Columbus that the Blue Jackets are moving on from Dean Evason, who only made it through one full season as the Blue Jackets’ head coach. Halfway through his second year… On one hand, Columbus is last place in the Eastern Conference… Maybe you shouldn’t be totally stunned that a team who’s dead last in their conference fires their coach, but I look at what Evason’s done over the last year and a half. I mean you go back to last year, led the Blue Jackets to their best record since 2018-19. I think on an emotional level, he led that organization and that team through a season where they were dealing with the loss of Johnny Gaudreau. I think that’s an important factor to remember in all of this. I don’t understand why they’re firing Dean Evason in the middle of January.

Carter Hutton: Yeah, I don’t know… I thought he honestly would have gotten a little bit of a better response from his players. He’s a guy that I spent a bunch of time with. He was in the minors in Milwaukee in the AHL while I was in Nashville. During playoff runs, he was always around… He’s a guy that’s inspiring, and I felt like he would have gotten these guys to play a little better on the other side of the puck.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…