Emotions are running high on Evason's return to Minnesota in the Wild-Blue Jackets' opening game

Dean Evason delivered a competitive enough product, coaching the Wild in 251 regular season games and three playoff appearances to earn a spot in the always entertaining NHL coaching carousel.

A seven-game losing streak led to him being released by the Wild on November 27, and general manager Bill Guerin concluded that the briefly unemployed John Hynes could be the answer to a reversal of fortunes.

This was NHL job No. 3 for Hynes, the early results were great, and then the Wild found the mediocrity needed to miss the playoffs – a feat that is as difficult statistically as it is to pull off.

Don Waddell left Carolina in late May to become head hockey coach in Columbus, then hired Evason as the Blue Jackets' new head coach on July 22. Dean's wait in the NHL head coaching spin-o-rama wasn't long – eight months.

For a team that finished 16th out of 16 in the East last season and was extremely young, there was little chance of instant gratification.

And then tragedy struck: Johnny Gaudreau, 31, a dynamic scorer in Calgary some time ago, a big personality who had arrived in Columbus as a free agent two years earlier, was killed by a vehicle along with his younger brother Matt while riding bicycles on a rural road in southern New Jersey.

The date was August 29th and the day before the sister would marry Katie Gaudreau in Philadelphia.

When reporters bring this up with people who played with Johnny or who knew the Gaudreaus as family or both, the pain is searing.