COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 \u00a0Rick Bowness was enjoying time on his boat in Florida when he received a call from Don Waddell on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Bowness thought the call from the Columbus Blue Jackets president of hockey operations and general manager was about a player Bowness once coached.<\/p>\n
It turned out to be something else \u2014\u00a0a head coaching offer.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Bowness was on the ice at Nationwide Arena on Tuesday morning, conducting practice after accepting Waddell\u2019s offer to take over as head coach
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He had retired in the spring of 2024, ending a two-year stint with the Winnipeg Jets<\/p>\n
The 70-year-old hockey lifer has coached both iterations of the Jets, as well as Boston, Ottawa, the New York Islanders, Phoenix and Dallas<\/p>\n
Bowness replaces Dean Evason, who was in his second year and became the first NHL coach fired this season<\/p>\n
Bowness was on the ice at Nationwide Arena on Tuesday morning, conducting practice after accepting Waddell\u2019s offer to take over as head coach. Bowness doesn\u2019t have much time to get acquainted with his new team as the Blue Jackets host the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
This move marks Bowness\u2019 return behind an NHL bench. He had retired in the spring of 2024, ending a two-year stint with the Winnipeg Jets. Bowness explained on Tuesday that he stepped down because of health issues he and his wife, Judy, were experiencing.<\/p>\n
The 70-year-old hockey lifer has coached both iterations of the Jets, as well as Boston, Ottawa, the New York Islanders, Phoenix and Dallas. He took over the Stars during the 2019-20 season and led them to the Stanley Cup Final in the 2020 pandemic bubble.<\/p>\n
Even though Bowness becomes the league\u2019s oldest head coach and turns 71 on Jan. 25, he said he is ready and rested for another opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel a whole lot better. Judy\u2019s doing great, and so that opened the door again,\u201d Bowness said. \u201cI did want to coach again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowness replaces Dean Evason, who was in his second year and became the first NHL coach fired this season. Assistant coach Steve McCarthy was also fired.<\/p>\n
Columbus is last in the East with a 19-19-7 record, seven points out of a playoff spot with 12 games until the Olympic break.<\/p>\n
Last season, the Blue Jackets were the feel-good story, coming within two points of the final playoff spot after the death of star forward Johnny Gaudreau in August 2024. During that emotional year, Evason was a Coach of the Year candidate as he guided the team to a 23-point improvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, a bit of a shock, a wake-up call that we can use and hopefully use in the right way,\u201d team captain Boone Jenner said.<\/p>\n
Bowness is the 14th coach in Columbus\u2019 25 seasons. He will try to get the Blue Jackets into the playoffs for the first time since 2019-20.<\/p>\n
Waddell cited blowing a three-goal lead in\u00a0a 5-4 overtime loss to Pittsburgh\u00a0on Jan. 4 and a subsequent 1-3 road trip as reasons why he felt a change was needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have all the respect in the world for Dean and Steve. I think last year they did a tremendous job in very difficult situations, but again, I think our expectations this year were higher than what we\u2019re achieving right now,\u201d Waddell said. \u201cI talked to some of the younger players and some of the leaders. They weren\u2019t by any means bashing the coach, but I could tell they were frustrated with how things were going. So it all came to a point over the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides eliminating poor third periods, Bowness cited other defensive factors, including limiting odd-man rushes and shooting chances in the slot. Columbus also has the fourth-worst penalty-killing unit in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t score your way into the playoffs. This isn\u2019t the \u201980s, man,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to say whatever has to be done. I\u2019m not a 30-year-old coach worrying about my career. I\u2019m at the end of my career. Anybody who\u2019s worried about next year is taking the wrong approach on this whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sean Monahan, who played for Bowness in Winnipeg in 2023-24, said he was surprised by the move but that Bowness can bring structure to the team while being heavy on details.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can be hard on guys. He\u2019s vocal. He\u2019s fun to play for because he\u2019s motivated to be out there to coach to get the two points every night, and I think he\u2019s been through it all,\u201d Monahan said. \u201cHe\u2019s done it a long time, and he\u2019s had a lot of success at it. So, you\u2019ve got a lot of respect for a guy like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 \u00a0Rick Bowness was enjoying time on his boat in Florida when he received a call…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5108],"tags":[1249,2100,1251,3644,5180,897,230,5179,5,40,4,5188,5639,4093,43,1953],"class_list":{"0":"post-411689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-columbus-blue-jackets","8":"tag-app-sports","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-blue-jackets","12":"tag-bluejackets","13":"tag-columbus","14":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","15":"tag-columbusbluejackets","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nhl","19":"tag-ohio","20":"tag-ohio-columbus-blue-jackets","21":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115907498133856743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411689","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=411689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}