Just a few days after the Minnesota Wild fired head coach Dean Evason, Evason spoke candidly with The Athletic’s Michael Russo about what transpired the day of the firing and his positive outlook heading into the future.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Dean Evason sat down with our pal Michael Russo from The Athletic to talk about Evason’s mindset, and how this all came together and it was really surprising but pleasantly surprising seeing a coach come out and talk about his side of things shortly after getting fired.
Frank Seravalli: There is so much positivity and it almost feels like if you have that much people will perceive it as you are not sad you lost your job, of course, he is upset about that and of course, he still wants to be the coach of the Wild. But, I love his attitude about it, “I didn’t wake up today because I was fired and think that I am a shitty coach, I woke up thinking I am a pretty good coach and ready to coach again.” I love that thought process.
Frank Seravalli: It’s a lot of what you’re seeing with the Edmonton Oilers, Connor McDavid scoring, their powerplay is clicking, getting some saves from their goalies. It’s been one game, but you start to see that from the Wild. Matt Boldy who scored 31 goals last season only has two and that will start to trend in the right direction and pile up some goals. He hinted on Kaprizov being injured and his skating speed hasn’t recovered yet. That was an interesting tidbit.
Frank Seravalli: Then the penalty kill, he said he texted with fired coach Bob Woods and they said “Oh the PK looks great tonight.” A lot of these things tend to bounce back but I think he understands that after losing seven in a row for a team that has not just playoff expectations but to do more than that, your job is always on the line. I love that mentality he has of ‘instead of wallowing inside and sitting in a corner sucking on your thumb, I’m going to get back and coach.’
Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah and the other thing that stood out to me was when he shared the exchange with Bill Guerin, “Are you firing me bud?” and Guerin says “Yup” and they both shed some tears. It’s easy for us fans to say “fire the coach” but it’s hard to understand that its not easy to fire friends and people you have worked with for years.
You can watch the full show here…
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