Minnesota Wild fire head coach Dean Evason, assistant coach Bob Woods

The Minnesota Wild announced this afternoon that they've dismissed head coach Dean Evason and assistant coach Bob Woods.

"Dean did an excellent job during his tenure with the Minnesota Wild, especially as Head Coach of our team," said Wild general manager Bill Guerin in the team's press release. "I am very thankful for his hard work and dedication to our organization."

"I would also like to thank Bob for his hard work during his time as an Assistant Coach with the Wild," said Guerin. "I wish Dean, Bob and their families all the best in the future."

The Wild sit second-last in the Central Division with a 5-10-14 record as of this writing, 30th in the NHL standings with a minus-20 goal differential. Sunday's 4-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings was their seventh straight, and they now have only a 24.5 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to MoneyPuck.

Everything under the hood suggests that the Wild haven't necessarily been undone by poor luck either. Sure, it doesn't help to have goaltending comfortably in the bottom third of the league in save percentage, but they're an about average team across the board by most underlying measures of quality – Corsi, expected goals, etc.

To make matters worse, many of the Wild's best players have gone cold, and they have the ninth-worst power play and league-worst penalty kill. These are usually semi-reliable indicators that something isn't working behind the bench. And so, the Wild made a change.

Evason, 59, took over as head coach of the Wild during the 2019-20 season, eventually righting the ship and guiding Minnesota to the play-in round in the Edmonton bubble, where they bowed out to the Vancouver Canucks. In his parts of five seasons with the team, he has a 147-77-27 regular season record and was a Jack Adams finalist in the 2020-21 season.

The Wild's next game is tomorrow night at 7 PM local time against the St. Louis Blues.