Blue Jackets Coaching Reaction

Dean Evason became the first domino to fall in the coaching world this NHL season when the Columbus Blue Jackets announced that he was relieved of his duties on Monday.

Rick Bowness was announced to be stepping in as the new bench boss as the Jackets are starting to get desperate, trying to search for answers to get them out of the bottom of the East standings.

The Blue Jackets entered this season off an impressive finish last year, where they missed the playoffs by just two points.

There was lots of hype coming into this year, but you can tell something was wrong with the squad, and that’s why this decision was made.

Columbus is a game over .500 right now and sits just outside last place in the Eastern Conference, and this move comes at a critical point in their season.

I think this is the right move. It’s a wake-up call for the players that can be used as a kick start, which is needed badly.

They opened November with a four-game losing streak, only to then lose another four straight in late November.

After that, they lost five straight between Dec. 6 and Dec. 13. Not a recipe for success to go on long losing streaks.

The Jackets ended a 1-3-0 road trip, which concluded with a win at Utah, but it was just time to make a switch.

Nine of their 26 losses came after blowing a third-period lead and the squad has an abysmal -24 goal differential in the final frame. Flat out embarrassing.

Frustration set in within the room and GM Don Waddell pulled the trigger and landed Bowness, who's 310-408-37 with 48 ties in 803 games as an NHL head coach with the Jets, Stars, Phoenix Coyotes, Islanders, Senators and Bruins.

Bowness, who has been out of the league since leaving Winnipeg in 2024, will be tasked with trying to dig this Columbus team out of a hole and find solutions for a group of guys that seem to have some level of disconnect at this point in the season.

The defense and goaltending need to be cleaned up if things are to be fixed for the CBJ.

70-year-old Rick is fired up to be back in the NHL after spending some time on the NHL on TNT panel the last year and a half.

It’s good to see Bowness back behind an NHL bench after he had to step down due to medical reasons, and I hope he can turn this team around at least enough to be in the conversation in a couple of months.

The East is wide open, especially for the two wild card spots, and even though Columbus has had a mediocre start to the year, only six points separate them from where they want to be.

Only time will tell what happens from now until the end of the year. The Jackets are off to a good start in the Bowness era with a win a night ago against Calgary.

Austin Moran is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact, email acm6506@psu.edu