{"id":404186,"date":"2026-01-12T23:26:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T23:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/404186\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T23:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T23:26:16","slug":"blue-jackets-fire-dean-evason-hire-ex-stars-coach-rick-bowness-to-replace-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/404186\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jackets fire Dean Evason, hire ex-Stars coach Rick Bowness to replace him"},"content":{"rendered":"

COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 The Columbus Blue Jackets fired coach Dean Evason and named\u00a0hockey-lifer Rick Bowness<\/a>\u00a0as his replacement on Monday.<\/p>\n

Evason is the first NHL coach fired this season. General manager Don Waddell announced the abrupt change with his team sitting in last place in the Eastern Conference 45 games into the season with a record of 19-19-7.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis season has been a frustrating one for all of us and the bottom line is we are not performing at a level that meets our expectations,\u201d Waddell said. \u201cWe all share in that responsibility, me included, and while this was not a decision that was made lightly, it is one that needed to be made at this time. Dean did a tremendous job last year under extremely difficult circumstances, and I thank him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant Steve McCarthy, who had been with the organization for nearly a decade, was also fired.<\/p>\n

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Bowness is back in the league after\u00a0he retired<\/a>\u00a0in the spring of 2024, ending a stint with the Winnipeg Jets. Bowness, who coached Dallas to the Stanley Cup Final in the 2020 pandemic bubble, turns 71 on Jan. 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cRick Bowness is a tremendous coach with invaluable experience and knowledge, and he will bring a steadiness to our team at an important juncture in our season,\u201d Waddell said. \u201cHe is a good communicator whose teams play with structure, are sound defensively and we believe he is the right person to bring out the best in our group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowness during his lengthy career has been head coach for seven different teams, dating to the original Jets in 1988. He did some broadcasting with TNT since stepping away from his most recent job in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

Evason was just past the midway point of his second season in charge of the Blue Jackets. Waddell\u2019s first order of business upon becoming GM was to fire then-coach Pascal Vincent and\u00a0put Evason behind the bench<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Find more Stars coverage from\u00a0The Dallas Morning News\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 The Columbus Blue Jackets fired coach Dean Evason and named\u00a0hockey-lifer Rick Bowness\u00a0as his replacement on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5117],"tags":[2155,196,147,5278,5,4,12090,197],"class_list":["post-404186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-stars","tag-brief","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-stars","tag-dallasstars","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-rick-bowness","tag-stars"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115884719093861937","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}