Why coaching Team Canada has deep, long-held meaning for Blue Jackets' Dean Evason

New York Times

30-04-2025

COLUMBUS, Ohio — On the morning after the Columbus Blue Jackets ended their season, the dressing room and back hallways of Nationwide Arena were buzzing. Some players packed up their locker belongings and got ready to head home for the offseason, while others milled about, mulling their next steps.
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Coach Dean Evason didn't meet with every player, but he sat down for a face-to-face meeting with a few players, especially those who were leaving Columbus quickly. Those who stay year-round will likely grab coffee or lunch with the coach, he said.
In the middle of all this, Evason received a call from the senior vice president of hockey operations for Team Canada's national team, Scott Salmond, who was in search of a coach for the IIHF World Championships and wanted to touch base before Evason started making offseason plans of his own.
'If you could be patient with leaving or booking flights anywhere,' Salmond told Evason, 'there's a consideration for you with Team Canada.'
Evason had just finished maybe his finest season as an NHL coach, leading the young, patchwork Blue Jackets to a surprising 40-33-9 record, a whopping 23-point improvement over the previous season. The Jackets were the last NHL club eliminated from the playoffs, learning their fate with one game left in the season.
The season had been positive and lifting on the whole, but the ending — coming oh-so-close, but not getting there — was deeply frustrating to Evason. He could use a lift.
Salmond provided the tease. Three days later, the follow-up call came.
'(Team Canada GM) Kyle Dubas called and asked if I would be interested,' Evason said. 'And I said, 'Yes, of course.' I didn't even have to think about it.
'I know there are different circumstances as to why guys turn it down. But to me, unless you're hurt, unless you're injured, unless you've got something of significance going on … if you can still play hockey, why not play hockey? And to represent your country is such an honor. It didn't take any time. I just said yes.'
Evason left Columbus on Tuesday, flying to Vienna, Austria, where Team Canada will have two practices and a tune-up game against Austria. Then it's on to Budapest, Hungary, where they'll play a second tune-up game, and then Stockholm ahead of the tournament, which runs May 9-25 in Sweden and Denmark.
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There have been other players who are more intrinsically linked to their national teams than Evason is to Team Canada. In Canada, that's golden-goal scorers Sidney Crosby and Marie-Philip Poulin, as well as the legendary Paul Henderson.
But Evason's inclusion with Team Canada has taken place at some of the most important times in his career — a strong World Junior Championship in 1984, his final year of junior before he turned pro; a World Championships appearance that helped extend his pro career in 1997; and now, as he's gaining attention as one of the NHL's top coaches.
Evason was coming off a monster 1982-83 season with the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League. In 70 games, he scored 71 goals and had 93 assists, a 164-point season that, incredibly, was second in the WHL.
Still, Evason said, he wasn't a lock to make Team Canada's entry the following season at the World Juniors in Sweden.
'I made it as a right winger,' said Evason, who had 6-3-9 in seven games in the tournament. 'Mario Lemieux was hurt prior to coming and it gave me an opportunity, I think, to probably make the team.
'The tournament was funky. We finished fourth because there was no playoff, no medal rounds. It was just a round-robin on points and then it ended. We lost to Finland. We tied Russia. We lost to Czech Republic. But we really would have liked a medal round, you know?'
Evason, who was a fifth-round pick (No. 89) by the Washington Capitals in 1982, made his NHL debut a few months after that tournament, playing two games at the end of the season. He was off and running on an 803-game NHL career with Washington, Hartford, San Jose, Dallas and Calgary.
Over his 15-year career, Evason was a feisty, indefatigable forward who spent most of his time under the opponents' skin. For longtime Blue Jackets fans, think Tyler Wright.
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Just as Team Canada was there at the start of Evason's pro career, so it was a big part of the end of his NHL playing days.
Evason's contract was bought out by the Calgary Flames following his 1995-96 season, in which he had seven goals and seven assists in 67 games. As the summer moved along, there were no NHL offers, just a few AHL contracts on the table with invitations to the NHL training camp.
'I was skating in the summer, staying in shape,' Evason said. '(Longtime NHL coach Andy Murray) comes up to me on the ice one day — this was his camp I was skating at — and he asked what I was doing next season.'
That started a conversation that brought Evason back into the fold with Team Canada. Back then, Canada maintained a team that played its own season, much like the barnstorming days of old. They'd play tournaments all over the world, anywhere they could find games.
Murray was the coach, and he brought Evason along as one of his players.
'There were a bunch of 18-to-24-year-olds on the team,' Evason said. 'We went to the Deutschland Cup (in Germany), the Spengler Cup (in Switzerland), the Izvestia Cup (in Russia), the Globen Cup (in Sweden) … we even went to Japan to play the Japanese National Team, because it was right before the Olympics in Nagano.
'We went to like 11 or 12 countries. I just soaked it all up. I had been bought out by the Flames, so I wasn't worried about money. I was skating my a– off, working out … I was in the best shape of my career.'
That spring, the AHL's Houston Aeros wanted to sign Evason for their playoff run. When he told Murray of the offer, Murray played his trump card to keep him. 'If you stay,' he said, 'I'll take you to the World Championships.'
Evason was the only non-NHL player on Team Canada's roster, which included some generational NHL stars: Rob Blake, Owen Nolan, Keith Primeau, Chris Pronger, Mark Recchi, Geoff Sanderson and a 19-year-old Jarome Iginla. Not only was Evason on the team, but Murray named him captain.
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'He gave me so much responsibility. He trusted me,' Evason said. 'You could see where it could be a challenge, but Andy had my back in that area. Plus, I'd played in the league, right, and I was only one year removed. I played with a few of those guys, so there was a relationship.
'The transition wasn't terrible. It was pretty natural, actually. And obviously it was a tremendous honor.'
Back then, the World Championships didn't have a medal round. The two top teams played a three-game series to determine the champion. Canada lost the first game to Sweden, then came back to win the final two. Evason scored the 1-0 goal in the deciding game.
'A little wraparound,' Evason said. 'I jammed a rebound in.'
Evason said he was planning to start his coaching career the following season, but his play with Team Canada — throughout the season, but especially in the Worlds — helped extend his playing days. He had two offers in Germany and one in Japan, he said.
He played two seasons in Germany before hanging up his skates.
A gold medal-winning captain at the 1997 #MensWorlds, Dean Evason has brought a love for the game and a love of his country behind the Team Canada bench. 🇨🇦
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO ⏩ https://t.co/KSE9E4XmEO@hockeymanitoba pic.twitter.com/mYqbC6f0Wc
— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) May 18, 2024
It was 13 seasons between Evason's Team Canada appearances as a player, first with World Juniors, then the World Championships. It took 27 more years before he was back in the fold in a different capacity.
Evason, who had been fired by the Minnesota Wild in November 2023, was hired last spring by Team Canada to be an assistant coach. Who hired him? Rick Nash, who holds considerable sway in the Blue Jackets' front office, is currently the program's director of hockey operations.
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Team Canada, with Evason on coach André Tourigny's staff, finished fourth in Czechia. But that experience left a mark.
First, with the Blue Jackets. Nash played a big part in the Blue Jackets' coaching search last summer under new GM Don Waddell, and he had only good things to say about Evason, based on players who'd played under him in Minnesota and in the minors, but also on the first-hand knowledge he gained at the Worlds.
The Blue Jackets hired Evason last July. His personality — driven and demanding, but with a capacity for people skills — worked wonders in a dressing room that was craving discipline and guidance.
In turn, his performance with Columbus may have helped drive the point home with Team Canada. One day after the Blue Jackets' season ended, Salmond called.
Evason's coaching staff will include Calgary coach Ryan Huska, Nashville coach Andrew Brunette and Blue Jackets assistant coach Steve McCarthy. Evason had already divvied up responsibilities before he left Columbus for Vienna on Tuesday.
'Brunette will run the power play and the (offensive zone) routes and sequences,' Evason said. 'Huska will run the penalty kill, the (zone) entries and faceoffs, and look after the centers. (McCarthy) runs the defense. We're still waiting on a goalie coach, but we're in the process of getting one.'
Evason will have two of his players — 20-year-old center Adam Fantilli and 22-year-old winger Kent Johnson — with him, too. For both players, this will already be their fourth time representing Team Canada, including twice in the World Championships.
Fantilli (31 goals) and Johnson (57 points) both had breakout seasons in Columbus.
'Just to see them play as they did throughout the season, but especially at the end of the season … how hard they played, how sound they played in some very important games,' Evason said.
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'The great thing here, with us getting to have this experience together, is that I can continue to coach them to play in the right way. Not just offensively, but to continue their growth as all-around players.'
Evason said he's already made mental notes about how he'll get this team ready to compete in the World Championships, which means everything to European hockey fans but is often an afterthought in North America, even in a hockey-mad Canada.
The fourth-place finish last season should provide fuel.
'No question, it's a motivating factor,' Evason said. To the Europeans, a lot of times, this is their Stanley Cup. They'll do anything to win, and that's the message that I'll be giving to the players early.
'The Latvian team will block shots with their faces in order to keep that thing out of the net. Their commitment, like the other clubs (in Europe), is very, very high. As NHL players, you're honored to be there … but you'd rather be in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
'So we have to find a way to dial it up. That's my job.'