The Minnesota Wild have fired head coach Dean Evason after a disastrous start to their season. Yesterday Evason and assistant coach Bob Woods were both let go. The Wild are 5-10-4 and are stuck in a seven-game winless streak. They have only four regulation wins this season, tied for second fewest in the NHL. "Dean did an exczellent job during his tenure with the Minnesota Wild, especially as head coach of our team," Wild general manager Bill Guerin said. "I am very thankful for his hard work and dedication to our organization." Assistant coach John Hynes will take over as interim head coach.

Evason, 59, had three full seasons in charge of the Wild, who gave him his first head coaching job in the NHL on Feb. 14, 2020, when Bruce Boudreau was fired, and he was promoted from his assistant role. Evason made the playoffs every year with the Wild but failed to ever reach the second round. In 2021-22, Evason helped the Wild to 53 wins, the best of his career. He went 147-77-27 in 251 regular season games and 8-15 in the postseason without winning any series. New Wild coach John Hynes, 48, is 284-255-63 in eight NHL seasons. The Predators fired him on May 30, six weeks after missing the playoffs. They lost in the opening round in each of three previous years, starting in 2020 when he was hired midseason to replace the fired Peter Laviolette. The Devils fired Hynes about a month before he was plucked off the market by the Predators.

While the Wild have been one of the worst teams to start the year, it's early enough that the Wild can turn this around and climb back into contention for the playoffs. They've reached the postseason in 10 of the last 11 years and have some talent on the roster headed by Kirill Kaprizov. Eighth-place Seattle is just 8-9-5, seven points ahead of Minnesota, personally I won't be surprised to see Minnesota earn a spot in the dance.