“He’s at the highest level possible,” Evason said. “Last year was my first year coming in here and you see a player from the outside looking in and you’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s really good,’ but you watch him on a day-to-day basis, how he prepares, how he practices and how effortless he is playing 30 minutes a night and seemingly not getting tired at all. And the skill set not only to score, to set up, to play offense, but his stick is tremendous.

“He’s just consistently great. Like, every night. Maybe he’s had a couple games where it’s like, ‘Geez, he turned it over a couple times,’ but he’s at the highest level and I would argue top two or three defenseman in the world.”

Evason marvels at Werenski’s ability to be a culture driver along with the Blue Jackets’ best player.

“He will call guys out,” Evason said. “He doesn’t say a lot, but if you’re not working in practice or if you’re doing the wrong thing in a game or off the ice, he will say something. He has no issues saying, ‘Quit fooling around here, let’s get going.’ He isn’t a guy that gets up on the soapbox and conducts team meetings or calls a team meeting, but when he speaks everybody is like, ‘Whoa, OK, he knows what he’s talking about.’

“You talk about leading by example, just watch him prepare; watch him practice, watch him play. It’s a wonderful example to follow.”

Evason also had a chance on the “NHL @TheRink” podcast to talk about his team as a whole, saying he has appreciated their resiliency and ability to stay positive this season.

It has been challenged.

Seven times last month, Columbus had surrendered a lead in the third period, going 2-1-4 in those games. Losing those valuable points is the reason why the Blue Jackets (12-9-5) are on the wrong side of the playoff line in the Eastern Conference, albeit by two points.

But Evason said he hasn’t sensed any panic among the players or the coaches, which was evident Monday when Columbus won 5-3 in a contentious game against the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center, coming back from down 2-0 in the first period. The Blue Jackers were able to keep the lead they built early in the third.

“We’ve let some leads slip away here as of late and we continually talk to the group about just staying positive,” Evason said. “We were getting points. We were playing hard. There were different circumstances. We didn’t see a pattern. We didn’t see something happening on a regular basis. Were we happy about it? No, but we asked the guys to stay the course and to believe that what we were doing was right and hopefully it turns around.

“Maybe that game (in New Jersey) does that.”