Dean Evason Out in Columbus, Replaced by Rick Bowness

In a shocking twist of events, the Columbus Blue Jackets have made a change at the head coach position. Second-year head coach Dean Evason, alongside assistant coach Steve McCarthy, were relieved of their duties per the team’s press release yesterday afternoon.

Evason, 61, coached the Blue Jackets to a 59-52-16 record in the 127 games he was their bench boss. He previously coached the Minnesota Wild from 2019 to 2023, amassing a 147-77-27 record across 251 games coached in Minnesota.

Rick Bowness, an NHL coach with over four decades of experience, was named Evason’s replacement.

The 70-year-old Bowness most recently coached the Winnipeg Jets from 2022 to 2024. He stepped away from coaching by announcing his retirement, but he stayed active by appearing as an occasional studio analyst on TNT’s NHL broadcasts.

Since beginning his coaching career in 1984, Bowness has coached the most NHL games with 2,726 under his belt. Bowness has coached five teams beyond the regular season, most notably when he took the Dallas Stars to the 2020 Stanley Cup Final.

In 2024, Bowness coached at the NHL All-Star game and was named a Jack Adams finalist as the Winnipeg Jets’ head coach that season.

The legendary NHL coach is set to make his head coaching debut as the head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight, as Columbus hosts the Calgary Flames at 6:00 pm CST.

With Bowness finding his way back into the NHL, he’s the last active NHL coach to have a coaching career that dates back to the 1980s. He also stands as one of three head coaches, alongside Scotty Bowman and Pat Quinn, to have worked in the NHL in five different decades.