COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus Blue Jackets hope they finally got it right behind their bench.

The club’s third coaching search in four summers ended Monday when former Minnesota Wild coach Dean Evason was named the 11th coach in Blue Jackets history. Evason, 59, was signed to a multiyear contract after a lengthy and intense hiring process guided by president and general manager Don Waddell.

“There is a great core and a lot of young talent on this team,” Evason said in a statement. “I am really looking forward to working with this group and helping us become a team that plays extremely hard and competes at the highest level.”

GOT OUR GUY

We’ve named Dean Evason as our new head coach!

We’re thrilled to welcome Dean and his wife Jen to the #CBJ family!

https://t.co/BMpvXKi4yc pic.twitter.com/muZyWKBA47

— Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) July 22, 2024

Waddell made it clear from the start that he was interested in interviewing only coaches with previous NHL head-coaching experience, so the pool of candidates quickly was whittled to a manageable number. But the last three weeks were filled with interviews and negotiations at a time when the rest of the league mostly settled into offseason mode.

“Dean Evason brings to coaching what he brought as a…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Columbus Blue Jackets’ search for defensive depth and another veteran voice in the dressing room has landed on a familiar player.

Defenseman Jack Johnson, who spent seven seasons with the Blue Jackets in the previous decade, signed a one-year, $775,000 contract — the NHL’s minimum salary — after visiting with GM Don Waddell in Nationwide Arena on Tuesday.

Johnson, 37, has played in 1,187 games with six different franchises, winning the Stanley Cup with Colorado in 2022. The 2024-25 season will be his 19th in the NHL.

Johnson has continued to live in suburban Columbus even as his career took him to Pittsburgh, the New York Rangers, Colorado, Chicago, and back to Colorado after he left the Blue Jackets as a free agent following the 2017-18 season.

The contract talks started when Johnson got word to the Blue Jackets that he’d welcome a chance to play, and possibly finish his career, in Columbus.

“This is my hometown,” Johnson told The Athletic. “This city means a lot to me. This is where I’m raising my family. This is where my wife’s family is, too. It’s special, for sure.”

On Monday, the opening day of free agency, the Blue Jackets signed 29-year-old center Sean Monahan, to a five-year, $27.5 million contract to be the No. 1 center and…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Columbus Blue Jackets:

Item No. 1: A wild night

A player’s first call-up to the NHL is a massive moment — not just for the player but for their surrounding family. It’s one part nerves, two parts excitement and, in some cases, a major drama behind the scenes. Consider the story earlier this week when Luca Del Bel Belluz, a second-round pick (No. 44) of the Blue Jackets in the 2022 draft, was called up for his NHL debut.

Angelo Del Bel Belluz was in a real estate development meeting on Tuesday when his cell phone buzzed. If it wasn’t Luca calling, he might not have stepped outside to take it.

“Luca’s out of the breath on the other end,” Angelo said. “He said, ‘Dad, I just got called up. You have to get down here. Leave now!’”

It was 12:58 p.m. and the Blue Jackets had just recalled Luca from AHL Cleveland to make his NHL debut in the season finale vs. Carolina. The recall came late because Blue Jackets forward Dmitry Voronkov had fallen sick during the day.

Angelo’s first call was to his wife, Susy, who works for WestJet, the second-largest airline based in Canada. But she had bad news: The last direct flight of the day from Toronto to…

ELMONT, N.Y. — Jeff Carter retired from the NHL in a memorable way, scoring a goal in his final game Wednesday night.

“I kind of knew coming in at the start of the year that this was it,” Carter said after scoring on the power play in the third period of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 5-4 loss to the New York Islanders at UBS Arena.

“It was time.”

Carter, 39, was joined in New York by his wife, children and other family members. To his surprise, the Islanders requested he take a victory lap that is normally reserved for home team players.

“That was nice,” Carter said. “Bo (Horvat) actually came up to me and said a couple of the guys wanted to talk after. That was really nice of them. There’s guys on that other side that have been around for a while, too — and I’ve played against quite a bit.

“A lot of respect for those guys.”

A classy move for a classy guy. pic.twitter.com/6OdoBgH2dc

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) April 18, 2024

Carter played for four franchises during his 19 seasons, including a couple of Stanley Cup champions while with the Los Angeles Kings from 2011-12 through 2020-21, when he was acquired by the Penguins at the trade deadline.

Once a fierce rival of the Penguins’ long-serving core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang,…

Our NHL style rankings have seen a fair share of players donning hats and blazers, even full suit combos. Calgary Flames forward Blake Coleman, who’s in the midst of a career season, has taken it one step further by donning Stetson hats with his outfits. He credits a Calgary-based World of Vici store stylist for his suits.

“I just have a guy here in Calgary that wanted to play a little dress-up this year,” Coleman said.

As for the hats, Coleman got himself hooked after wearing an Open Road Stetson while attending the Academy of Country Music Awards in Dallas last summer. Owning one turned into owning multiple hats. Even Coleman’s wife, Jordan, grabbed some during the Flames’ road stop in Dallas last November. Coleman also received a Stetson as a birthday gift.

“What’s that old expression? Look good, play good, feel good,” Coleman said. “It’s fun to mix it up a little bit. I was pretty simple earlier in my career. Now that I have the luxury to go get some new stuff, I’ve enjoyed it. My wife used to poke fun at my suit game. I think she’s probably the happiest of anybody.”

Coleman now is considered a style rankings regular for The Athletic. He’s been a part of stiff competition with some of the league’s best dressers, including Auston Matthews, Adam…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Columbus Blue Jackets:

Item No. 1: Radio voice silenced

Blue Jackets radio play-by-play voice Bob McElligott woke to quite a surprise on Dec. 15, just hours after he’d flown with the club from Toronto to Columbus following a 6-5 overtime win by the Jackets.

“I felt fine all day Friday and on the flight home,” McElligott told The Athletic this week. “Talked to my son when I got home, went upstairs and laid there talking to my wife until I fell asleep.

“I woke up around 5:30 a.m. and my tongue was swollen. I didn’t know if I’d bitten it in my sleep or if I had an ulcer on the side of my tongue, or what. I tried talking and it was messing with my speech because it was so big on that one side.”

After trying a couple of home remedies — a saltwater gargle, ice cubes, etc. — McElligott looked in the mirror before heading back upstairs to his wife, Kathy.

“I told my wife, ‘Hey, I’ve got a problem.’”

The situation progressed quickly, McElligott said.

“I didn’t notice that it was getting worse until we got to the emergency room,” McElligott said. “By then, the whole thing was swollen, not just the one side.

“I’m laying there on…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Erik Gudbranson seemed relatively pleased with his one-game suspension by the NHL following Sunday’s incidents involving Florida Panthers forward Nick Cousins.

Mostly, though, he was relieved to emerge from a dangerous hit with a few scraps on his face and feeling like he’d been in a car wreck.

Gudbranson was going back on a puck in the defensive zone early in the third period of Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the Panthers when Cousins lowered his shoulder into Gudbranson’s back, sending the veteran defenseman face-first into the end boards.

His wife, Sarah, and their two children were watching the game from the lower bowl.

“That’s a bad hit,” Gudbranson said. “If that hit takes place three feet before that, I end up going down and bending my neck. That’s when you get a compression fracture, and who knows how the rest of your life is?

“My kids were 85 feet away from that hit. It’s a terrible hit. I was walking around (later that night), pacing in the hallways at home, trying to calm down and just happy that my legs still worked.”

Gudbranson will sit out Thursday’s game in Toronto — and his wallet is $20,833.33 lighter — because he made sure that wasn’t the end of it with Cousins, who received a minor penalty…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Blue Jackets:

Item No. 1: New rink at Ohio State

Ohio State’s board of trustees this week approved a $2.7 million proposal to design a new ice rink on campus. On the surface, this would appear to be the good news that local college hockey fans have always wanted.

But unless a donor steps forward with a major contribution, the plan isn’t likely to please everybody.

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, speaking with The Athletic on Saturday, confirmed that the school’s initial plan is to design and study building an arena with a seating capacity of 1,500 to 3,000.

If the rink ends up being on the low end of that capacity, it would be used as a practice facility for both the men’s and women’s programs, but only the women’s programs would play games there. The men would continue to play in Schottenstein Center.

“It depends,” Smith said. “If we were able to get into that 3,000-seat area, there are some contests the men play where they could play in the new rink.

“But the larger ones — the games against that team up north (Michigan) or Penn State, for instance — we’d go to the Schott.”

The only way Ohio State could build something…

If you have questions about the future of your team’s live games on your local cable, satellite or digital provider, particularly those on Bally Sports channels, we’re here to answer with what we know so far.

Diamond Sports Group, the Baltimore-based corporate parent of the 19 Bally Sports channels that air 47 NBA, MLB, NHL and WNBA teams, announced Feb. 15 that it would skip a $140 million debt payment due that day and use the month-long grace period as part of its effort to financially reorganize itself.

Many observers interpret the move as a precursor to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, though that is not a certainty. Diamond has $8 billion-plus of debt, incurred as part of parent Sinclair’s 2019 purchase of the regional sports channels, and lost $1.2 billion in the most recent fiscal quarter.

“Certainly more likely that they will file bankruptcy because they did not make the payment,” said Schuyler Carroll, a bankruptcy attorney who is not connected to Diamond. “But not necessarily that they will file bankruptcy. They are still continuing discussions with their creditors to try and avoid bankruptcy. But those can often be difficult.”

Diamond in a Feb. 15 statement said it “intends to use the 30-day grace period to continue progressing its ongoing…

Before the hockey world descended on Sunrise, Fla., for NHL All-Star Weekend, players used the weeks leading up to celebrate women in sports, local high schools and apparently their deep-seated love for plaid suits. Fashion traditions were turned on their heads, while vintage looks from a decade ago were brought back to life.

Players having great seasons ahead of the season’s halfway mark reminded everyone that you can wear what you want, shamelessly, when you’re performing on the ice. Additionally, one star re-emerged with a dazzling blue suit and made a case for being the best-dressed player in the game. He had some incredible competition from two different teams who used their platforms to highlight those in their respective community.

Which athletes made a lasting impression before the All-Stars converged on the Sunshine State?

To get more stories like this delivered to your feed, follow our Culture vertical.

---

Wow, that scarf in the first photo is taking me all the way back to middle school and early high school in the late 2000s and early 2010s. This is a serious (and funny) flashback to what was stylish during my teenage years. Of the two looks, I’ll admit that, nostalgia aside, I prefer the all-brown suit and turtleneck ensemble by the Calgary Flames…