Was not keen on John Dean
As Drew Bannister will be returning to the Soo Greyhounds for a second go around as their head coach, let it be firmly stated here that the incoming bench boss is a clear cut, significant upgrade over the departed John Dean.
At the risk of being overly harsh — though I probably am — Dean more than over stayed his welcome as the head coach of the Ontario Hockey League Greyhounds.
To be sure, Dean was mostly underwhelming in his seven seasons at the helm of Sault Ste. Marie’s OHL team. Three times the Greyhounds finished below .500 and they once missed the playoffs while never advancing past the second round of the post season under Dean’s watch. Despite being handed some very good teams by general manager Kyle Raftis, Dean largely under performed as the head coach of the Hounds.
In fact, I have yet to come across a single person who felt that Dean should have been brought back to coach an eighth season with the Hounds in ’26-27. If a coach does have a shelf life, Dean’s expiry date had come and gone well before he and the Hounds parted ways earlier this off season.
The ’25-26 OHL season proved to be Dean’s swan song. Despite the presence of world class players such as goalie Carter George, defenseman Chase Reid and forward Brady Martin, the Hounds placed fifth among the 10 teams of the Western Conference and again failed to advance past the second round under Dean.
Along the way in ’25-26, Dean mishandled players such as forwards — and National Hockey League draft picks — Travis Hayes and Jordan Charron. And more than once over the past three years, Dean was too often too critical of goalie Landon Miller, another NHL draft pick.
(I am already betting that Hayes, Charron and Miller — should the latter return as an overage — will flourish under new coach Drew Bannister in ’26-27.)
At any rate, my dislike for, and lack of trust in Dean goes back to his second season with the Hounds, the ’19-20 campaign.
It was that season in which Kyle Raftis as the GM brought in overage goalie Bailey Brkin from the Western Hockey League when the Hounds were stumbling with a record of 7-12-1 through 20 games. Over the next 20 games, Brkin was a saviour with a record of 13-6-1 when the Hounds were finally able to sign import goalie Nick Malik.
Instead of having a competition for the starting job — or at least rotating both goalies — Dean overlooked what Brkin had done and immediately installed Malik as the no. 1 guy.
Malik was a disaster from the outset yet Dean kept going back to him and mostly leaving Brkin on the bench. Malik finished the season — that was eventually cancelled just before the start of the playoffs because of Covid — with a brutal record of 5-11-0. Yet Dean would never come clean as to why he stuck with Malik and gave the shaft to Brkin.
The Greyhounds would finish that season with a record of 29-31-4. They were 17-8-3 with Brkin in net, 5-11-0 with Malik and 7-12-1 with the early season duo of Christian Popp and Ethan Taylor.
Right then and there, the way that Dean handed the job to Malik and royally screwed Brkin, I knew I would never be able to like or trust Dean in any way, shape or form. No way I was going to overlook how Dean dicked Brkin around — and did so in that arrogant way of his.
Now, it is on to Drew Bannister, who has been a winner as a head coach at every level he has been at, including the National Hockey League.
More on Bannister later.
