Off-season of hope for on-ice change

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2016 (3440 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The season is over, Winnipeg Jets fans. All that remains is hope and dreams of a brighter future.

Those dreams received an immediate boost Monday when 2015 first-round draft pick Kyle Connor signed a three-year contract after a terrific season at the University of Michigan.

Coincidently, this happened as the NHL team’s brass held exit meetings with its players and faced media questions on the past season.

(A nice bit of misdirection: “Never mind last season, look at the new, shiny Mercedes we just bought!”)

The comments from various Jets players and staff during the final availability of the season was collectively pretty boring.

Head coach Paul Maurice backed his assistant coaches — so it’s all on him from now on. He also again said the Jets could be as young or even younger next year. (That translates to “don’t expect too much from us.”)

On Wednesday, however, general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff said something that left me wondering if the Jets might have a chance at respectability next season: he’d add a couple of veteran players this summer from the unrestricted free-agent market if they fit. He cited Mathieu Perreault (his prized UFA signing in 2014) as an example.

Cheveldayoff critics will say he won’t do anything (like last summer) and then he’ll defend it by saying there were no Perreaults available. I’m not so sure. It may be a matter of survival as Cheveldayoff and Maurice have two years left on their contracts.

NHL teams generally do not allow a head coach to go into his final year as a lame duck, easily tuned out by the players, so Maurice has one year (barring a contract extension after his team dropped 21 points in the standings this past season) to prove he’s the right coach for this team. Cheveldayoff is on a similar course. Do you want a lame-duck GM making desperate trades in the final year of his contract?

Let’s look at what the Jets have in their player bank.

They have an up-and-coming goaltender (Connor Hellebuyck), two good forward lines (Nikolaj Ehlers, Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler, Perreault, Bryan Little and/or Connor/Drew Stafford) and a good top four on defence (Jacob Trouba, Dustin Byfuglien, Tobias Enstrom, Tyler Myers).

There’s a large bundle of hope to fill out the bottom-six forward positions. However, consider that good teams need three scoring lines (or at least the bottom-six scoring has to be decent overall).

Beside each player listed below is their points total in 2015-16. I’m not going to pro-rate over a full season because this exercise is about established (in-the-bank) points.

The numbers aren’t inspiring, and just because the players are young, it doesn’t guarantee improvement. (Ask Adam Lowry, who had a much better rookie year than this past one.)

Lowry (17 points), Andrew Copp (13), who played better when he had better linemates (as most do), and Alexander Burmistrov (21), who continues to tease with his potential, are in the running for the third- and fourth-line centre jobs.

Nic Petan (six), Marko Dano (eight) and Joel Armia (10) were all impressive on certain nights.

Scott Kosmachuk (three) and J.C. Lipon (one) may push for a fourth-line spot. The recently signed Brandon Tanev (zero), Chase De Leo (zero) and others will give it a shot but it’s a very long one.

Brendan Lemieux has a bright future after graduating from junior but it is for the best he be challenged physically on a nightly basis in the American Hockey League in 2016-17.

Veterans Chris Thorburn (12) and Anthony Peluso (five) have one heck of a fight to remain relevant.

It’s hard to find a scoring line you can count on nightly out of that group without a huge bundle of hope attached. Don’t forget the problems that arise when injuries happen as well.

The final two spots on the blue line are also up for grabs but I’m more concerned about the forwards because I know many teams struggle to find good fifth and sixth defencemen. (Josh Morrissey, coming off a vastly-improved AHL season with the Manitoba Moose may help; with his skill set, he could jump over Paul Postma, Ben Chiarot and Mark Stuart.)

Are Cheveldayoff and Maurice willing to bet their contracts on this lineup, particularly the forwards? If they don’t add veteran help this summer, the following off-season might come too quickly for them. They need on-ice results.

Only good can come of Cheveldayoff adding a couple of decent veterans and discarding players the game has passed by. There were a number of good bargains in the UFA market last summer; expect the same this year.

The youth movement would still be alive and well. The AHL is a good league to learn the pro game, and allowing top prospects the time to grow would be a good thing.

Maurice and his crew would still need to fix the special teams and on-ice discipline, of course, but with a couple of veteran additions, the Jets could make some noise and push for a playoff spot.

That’s a wrap on my season folks; many thanks to you for reading and commenting. A big thank you to Free Press sports editor Steve Lyons for this opportunity, and to the staff that helped get my columns online and in print.

Chosen ninth overall by the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and first overall by the WHA’s Houston Aeros in 1977, Scott Campbell has now been drafted by the Winnipeg Free Press to play a new style of game.

Twitter: @NHL_Campbell