A fool and his playing time are soon parted these days

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This article was published 19/12/2015 (3556 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If it seems like Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice decided this week to get tough on undisciplined penalties, that’s because he has.

Asked Saturday morning at the MTS Centre if he has escalated the consequences for players who continue to contribute to the club’s league-worst penalty tally, Maurice replied: “Maybe put it (this way) — a stronger focus on certain types and moved to different ways of handling it.”

It wasn’t a long answer, but it was the most direct comments Maurice has made on the issue in a week in which he made a couple of dramatic moves that seemed to be aimed, at least in part, at sending the message to his team undisciplined play is going to come with increasingly severe consequences.

First, the Jets sent forward Adam Lowry down to the Manitoba Moose Wednesday, after Lowry took a costly penalty in a 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues Tuesday night.

Friday night in a 5-2 win over the New York Rangers, Maurice turned heads all over town — but especially in his own dressing room — when he punted captain Andrew Ladd down to the team’s third line after Ladd took a retaliatory penalty that led to the Rangers’ second goal.

While there was more at play in the Lowry demotion than one bad penalty, the timing of the move wasn’t entirely coincidental.

When Maurice followed by moving the team’s captain to the third line for a few shifts on Friday, the message was heard loud and clear in the dressing room.

“I think it just shows that he’ll do that to anyone — whether it’s Ladd or me or a rookie,” Jets centre Bryan Little said Saturday.

“If you’re going to take penalties like that, you’re going to pay a price. I think he referred to it as housekeeping last night, so I won’t say much more than that.”

Friday, Maurice refused to discuss the Ladd move beyond describing it as a “housekeeping” matter, suggesting he has decided that any discipline he metes out over bad penalties is going to be kept in-house, even if it does play out in a very public manner.

Penalties have killed the Jets this season, thanks to a lethal combination that has them leading the league in taking penalties, while at the same time having one of the league’s worst penalty-killing units (27th at 76.9 per cent).

The Jets did not practise Saturday. They will practice Sunday morning at MTS Iceplex before travelling later in the day to Alberta, where they will face the Edmonton Oilers Monday night and the Calgary Flames Tuesday night.

 

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek