By Tony Abbott -
It's been 48 hours since the end of the Dean Evason Era. Some cowards might say that's not enough time to process his impact and legacy on the Minnesota Wild fully. However, we at Hockey Wilderness are not cowards, so we'll give it a shot here.
Minnesota's had successful teams before Evason... at least, to some degree. The 2002-03 squad made the Western Conference Finals before Jean-Sébastien Giguère crushed their magic with his oversized goalie equipment. Bruce Boudreau synthesized the dream of merging the veteran Zach Parise/Mikko Koivu/Ryan Suter core with their young talent... until running into Jake Allen in the 2017 playoffs, that is.
Even in their previous glimmers of success, though, they were never a must-watch team. They never were even really a we-should-maybe-tune-in team. Wild hockey was a boring affair only to be consumed by Minnesotans, their opponents' for the given night, and a handful of defense-obsessed Sickos.
Until Dean Evason, that is. Obviously, the hype and deeds of Kirill Kaprizov went a long way to generating that buzz. Still, Evason deserves much credit for this era of prosperity. Over the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, the Wild reached what's indisputably their high-water mark, at least in watchability. They scored more goals per hour at 5-on-5 than any team except the Florida Panthers over those two years.
But like after any high-water mark, things started to decline afterward and into Monday. We can trace that tipping point to one square on the calendar: June 29, 2022.
The day of the Kevin Fiala trade.
Maybe it's weird to some to point to this moment, seeing as this deal looks like a win-win for the Los Angeles Kings and the Wild. Fiala's given LA 92 points in 88 games, and Minnesota is satisfied with defensive wünderkind Brock Faber. There were no losers in the deal... except for Evason. Even if he didn't think it at the time.
Much was made of Evason's relationship with Fiala from their time in the Nashville Predators organization. When Evason got the head coaching job, we saw Fiala as the coach's protege. That feeling intensified when Fiala unlocked a new production level under the then-interim coach to end the 2019-20 season.
As time passed, it became more apparent that their on-ice relationship was more fiendish than friendly. It wasn't, say, Werner Herzog/Klaus Kinski levels of dysfunction, but it was clear that the two clashed. Evason would rarely call out individual members of the team, good or bad... except he couldn't stop himself from throwing the occasional not-so-veiled barb at Fiala.
The financial pressure Minnesota was entering with the Parise/Suter buyouts was probably the No. 1 reason the Fiala trade happened. But it's hard to think of the small humiliations the Wild put the star winger through and conclude that it wasn't at least as much personal as it was business. Minnesota thought their best long-term play was being a team without Fiala.
The weird thing is that they might even be right. If we're keeping score by Evolving-Hockey's Standings Points Above Replacement (SPAR), 22 games of Faber (1.8 SPAR) amounts to around half of Fiala's value over 88 games with the Kings (3.9 SPAR). For a team that was heavy on top forward prospects and light on blue-chip blueliners, Minnesota got something they desperately needed. It's just that Evason couldn't survive the transition despite another 100-point team last year.
That 2022-23 "Grit First" Wild squad had warning signs under their hood. The Wild went from being second in the NHL in 5-on-5 goals to 28th since Fiala's departure. Teams no longer had to pick their poison and could commit to stopping Kaprizov's line. Matt Boldy struggled to carry a line by himself, forcing the break-up of a Joel Eriksson Ek-led third line that was Minnesota's secret weapon. The magical comebacks disappeared, and the Wild went from scoring a league-high 21 goals with an empty net in 2021-22 to just four in the post-Fiala Era (according to Natural Stat Trick).
The problems went beyond the loss of Fiala's skill. Evason got to exert his coaching philosophy to its furthest possible extent. He had a team-first unit of role players, and the Wild prioritized hard work over raw skill. When it worked, it worked. But whenever it didn't, he didn't have Fiala to bail him out with his combination of skill and chaos.
There was tension between Evason and Fiala, but tension often propels partnerships to new heights. Think of Andre 3000 and Big Boi from Outkast, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from "The X-Files," or Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin from "World War II." The day-to-day struggles of a challenging relationship can push both sides to become more well-rounded and create better results.
He might have driven his coach crazy, but Fiala was the rug that tied the 2021-22 Wild together. He was a necessary ingredient for Evason's love of line-balancing to work. Even his role as Evason's go-to outlet for frustration became missed because Fiala would often absorb the heat and keep other players out of the doghouse.
The results speak for themselves. Even with Kaprizov scoring 40 goals and Matt Boldy adding 31 last year, the Wild ceased to be must-watch TV. The results were solid, but the buzz was gone. When the results curdled this year, the lack of offensive magic turned from a necessary evil to a fatal flaw.
Again, it's hard to say that the Wild are worse off for making the Fiala trade. But having watched the last 100 games of Evason's tenure as a head coach, we can conclude that he was worse off without his star frienemy and that losing one led to losing the other. Now the State of Hockey is left to see if John Hynes can bring back the magic lost in the Fiala trade.
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