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Dean Evason

Minnesota Wild Extend Dean Evason

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Ahead of this weekend’s Winter Classic, the Minnesota Wild have left a present under the tree of each member of their coaching staff. Dean Evason and his entire staff have signed multi-year contract extensions. Evason, assistants Darby Hendrickson, Brett McLean, and Bob Woods, goaltending coach Frederic Chabot, and video coaches T.J. Jindra and Jonas Plumb aren’t going anywhere.

Hired partway through the 2019-20 season, Evason has done nothing but win since arriving in Minnesota. The team has a 62-29-7 record during his 98 games behind the bench, including a 19-9-2 record this season. There is obvious buy-in from many of the team’s stars, while other players like Joel Eriksson Ek have taken huge leaps in development since Evason took over.

An extension for the head coach was always likely given his success, but the Wild have rewarded the entire staff for how they work together. It’s not often you see such a widespread contract announcement, but management obviously likes what’s going on behind the bench and on the ice.

The Wild take on the St. Louis Blues at Target Field on Saturday night in what looks like it will be one of the coldest NHL games of all time. Perhaps the security a new contract extension brings can keep Evason warm as he tries to navigate the wintery outdoor game.

Jared Spurgeon Out Week-To-Week

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The Minnesota Wild are still sitting in first place in the Central Division, but they’re going to have to hold onto that spot without their captain for a while. Jared Spurgeon is considered week-to-week according to head coach Dean Evason, who spoke with reporters including Sarah McLellan of the Star Tribune.

Spurgeon left the team’s game against the Florida Panthers early with a lower-body injury and missed Sunday’s contest against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Wild lost both of those games (the latter in a shootout) and are now just one point ahead of both the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets in the Central race.

The 31-year-old Spurgeon meanwhile was having another strong season, with eight points through his first 16 games while averaging more than 21 minutes a game. He left the match against the Panthers after just three minutes of ice time and now appears to be on the shelf for the next little while.

In his place, the team has young Calen Addison back up with the NHL group, but put Jordie Benn into the lineup for just the second time this season. Matt Dumba and Jonas Brodin ended up carrying a huge load, each playing more than 25 minutes (with Dumba eclipsing 28!) in the loss to Tampa Bay.

Minnesota Wild Place Jordan Greenway On Injured Reserve

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The Minnesota Wild placed winger Jordan Greenway on injured reserve Friday afternoon, recalling Adam Beckman from the Iowa Wild in his place, per a team release.

Greenway suffered a lower-body injury during Thursday night’s game against the Seattle Kraken after taking a hit from Kraken captain Mark Giordano.

The Athletic’s Michael Russo expands on the nature of a recent injury bug that’s hit the Wild, stating defenseman Alex Goligoski is out one to two weeks with an upper-body injury while Dmitry Kulikov is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

If Beckman draws into the lineup, it will be his NHL debut. The 75th overall pick in 2019 has seen his stock rise sharply and now finds himself mentioned in a trio of skilled forward prospects in Minnesota’s system, along with Marco Rossi and Matthew Boldy. Beckman has three points in four AHL games this season.

Greenway’s had somewhat of a rough start to the season with just two assists in seven games. He was expected to be a major contributor in the team’s top-six forward group after scoring a career-high 32 points in 56 games last season.

Beckman could certainly get a look playing directly in Greenway’s spot with Ryan Hartman and Marcus Foligno, but head coach Dean Evason could also shuffle the team’s line combinations to put Beckman in less of a checking role.

Poll: Who Should Win The 2021 Jack Adams Award?

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All of the finalists for the major regular season awards have been announced, meaning it’s time for the NHL to start naming winners. That will begin on Monday with the King Clancy Memorial Trophy awarded to one of Kurtis Gabriel, Pekka Rinne, and P.K. Subban.

It’s hard for fans to really know the nuances of each finalist for the first three awards that will be announced next week. The King Clancy and Masterton are given to players just as much because of their off-ice interactions and leadership as their performance during the season. The Willie O’Ree, which will be awarded on Wednesday, is given to a community hero.

So let’s look ahead a few days to Thursday and the Jack Adams Award to see what the PHR community thinks should happen. Does the honor belong to Rod Brind’Amour of the Carolina Hurricanes, Dean Evason of the Minnesota Wild, or Joel Quenneville of the Florida Panthers?

The year before Brind’Amour took over behind the bench in Carolina, the Hurricanes weren’t very good. Even though they had strong performances from young players like Sebastian Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, and Jaccob Slavin, the team didn’t have the goaltending to compete in the tough Metropolitan Divison, which had five teams finish with at least 97 points. Carolina finished the year with a 36-35-11 record, missing the playoffs. Assistant Rod took over (along with several major trades to shake up the roster) and the team took off. Three years later and Brind’Amour is a Jack Adams finalist following a 36-12-8 regular season, good for third in the NHL.

Evason perhaps performed an even more impressive turnaround in Minnesota. Sure, the Wild made the playoffs six seasons in a row from 2012-2018, but the core that took them to many of those postseason appearances was either long gone or in a dramatic decline by the time he took over in 2020. He had just a taste during the 2019-20 season before COVID shut things down, but it was obviously a good move for the Wild to bring him back. A year after losing in four games to the Vancouver Canucks in the bubble qualification round, Minnesota was reborn under Evason into an exciting, must-watch hockey club. Kirill Kaprizov has a lot to do with that transformation, but so does the rookie head coach, who posted the best winning percentage in Wild history at .670 this season. Minnesota’s record of 35-16-5 tied them with Tampa Bay for eighth-best in the league, but they just were unlucky enough to run into the powerhouse Vegas Golden Knights in the first round (and pushed them to the limit to boot).

’Quenneville was lucky enough to have one of the best young cores in the league, anyone could have won those Cups with Chicago’ said many of his detractors when he signed a massive contract with the Panthers in 2019. Maybe that young Blackhawks core was lucky to have him, too. The legendary head coach had another outstanding year behind the bench, capitalizing on some savvy front office moves from Bill Zito to take the Panthers to the fourth-best record in the NHL. Incredibly, the .705 points percentage that Florida managed this season is the second-highest of Quenneville’s Hall of Fame career, only trailing the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season (which happened to end pretty well).

Of course, these weren’t the only strong head coaching performances this season. The New York Islanders’ recent playoff run would likely make Barry Trotz the favorite, but it is of course a regular season award. Mike Sullivan of the Pittsburgh Penguins navigated injuries to nearly his entire roster and had his club in a position to do some damage in the postseason. Even someone like Rick Bowness in Dallas should get some credit for managing a winning record in a year that nearly everything went wrong for the Stars (just imagine if a handful of those 14 overtime/shootout losses had gone their way).

So, PHR faithful, we ask you who you would give the Jack Adams to this season. Is it one of the finalists, or another one of the league’s head coaches? Cast your vote and make sure to explain it in the comments!

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2021 Jack Adams Finalists Announced

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The NHL continues to release the finalists for their major regular season award, this time naming the three men that are in contention for the Jack Adams Award, presented to the coach who has “contributed the most to his team’s success.” Last year’s winner was Bruce Cassidy of the Boston Bruins, but we’ll have a new name to engrave this time around.

The finalists for the 2020-21 season are Joel Quenneville of the Florida Panthers, Dean Evason of the Minnesota Wild and Rod Brind’Amour of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Quenneville, 62, certainly isn’t unfamiliar with the trophy but hasn’t held it in quite some time. The veteran NHL coach took home the award in 2000 with the St. Louis Blues and was the runner-up in 2013 with the Chicago Blackhawks. Just two finalist appearances is surprising for a man who is quickly closing in on 1,000 career wins. Quenneville sits second all-time behind only Scotty Bowman in the coaching ranks with 962 regular season wins and won the Stanley Cup three times in Chicago. He would be the Panthers’ first Jack Adams winner if he takes it home following the 37-14-5 season the team registered in 2020-21.

Evason will try to stand in his way despite having less than 82 games under his belt as an NHL head coach. The 56-year-old replaced Bruce Boudreau last season and now has a .669 winning percentage in his 68 games behind the Minnesota bench. While the addition of Kirill Kaprizov certainly helped, Evason turned the Wild into an exciting, competitive team that took the Vegas Golden Knights to seven games in the first round. Evason is only signed through next season but has quickly proven his worth as the answer in Minnesota.

Speaking of contracts, that’s all the buzz around Brind’Amour these days, even as he receives a nomination for the Jack Adams. The Hurricanes head coach isn’t signed for next season and this award is just another indication of how well he has done in his short tenure behind the Carolina bench. Since taking over in 2018, the Hurricanes have gone 120-66-20 in the regular season reached the playoffs all three years and the Conference Finals once. The 50-year-old is off to an outstanding start with his young group in Carolina and could be considered the favorite for this award.

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