Dean Evason is out and John Hynes is in. So who is Hynes and why was general manager Bill Guerin so quick to hire someone from outside the organization considering Minnesota will be back on the ice Tuesday night against the St. Louis Blues?
Hynes coached the New Jersey Devils from 2015 through the early part of the 2019-20 season before he was fired that December after a lousy start to the season. Just over a month later he was named the head coach of the Nashville Predators after Peter Laviolette was fired midway through the 2019-20 season.
Hynes went 134-96-18 in Nashville before the Predators brought in Barry Trotz as general manager and Trotz started fresh with his own coaches. Trotz had nothing but positive things to say about Hynes upon his dismissal.
“John Hynes is a good man and a good hockey coach,” Trotz said after the May 30 firing. “He did an outstanding job after the trade deadline with our team, especially with our young players, and he is a well-prepared, hard-working coach who will continue to grow in the NHL. After our year-end meetings and some additional evaluation, it was time to change the voice and time to go in a different direction.”
In his nine seasons as an NHL head coach, his teams never advanced out of the first round of the playoffs. New Jersey made the playoffs just once in his four-plus seasons and the Predators lost in the qualifying round in 2019-20 and then got bounced in the first round the next two seasons. Nashville missed the playoffs by three points last season.
Overall, Nashville went 3-11 in 14 postseason games under Hynes.
When former Predators general manager David Poile hired Hynes in January 2020, he applauded Hynes’ experience developing young talent, citing Hynes’ six seasons as head coach of the USA Development Team followed by five seasons with the Wilkes-Barre AHL affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
That’s where you can draw a straight line to Guerin, who was a player development coach and later the assistant general manager for the Penguins.
Ironically, the team Hynes is taking over in Minnesota is one of the oldest teams in the NHL. Heck, according to Cap Friendly they were the seventh-oldest team in the league before Guerin traded for 35-year-old Patrick Maroon and 33-year-old Zach Bogosian earlier in November – moves that boosted the average age on the Wild from 28.7 to 29.4.
That said, Hynes’ primary job in Minnesota will be resurrecting the worst penalty kill (66.7%) in the NHL and finding ways to get young forwards Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy going.
In his introductory press conference with the Predators, Hynes repeated that he wanted his team to be “tough to play against.” The style of play he demanded called for an aggressive forecheck, being tough in front of the net within a structured defense and bringing a high-pressure offense the inside of the ice.
In other words, he likes to play fast and aggressive in the offensive zone.
Off the ice, Hynes has a wife and three daughters. He loves Luke Bryan’s country music and he’s a New England Patriots football fan.
