The puck stops here: Recalling Pavelec signals end to Jets goaltending experiment

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/01/2017 (3161 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the wrongest I’ve ever been.

And that, folks, is saying something truly special.

My column in this space a week ago — in which I made a case for how the Winnipeg Jets had “quietly turned a corner” and appeared to be “a legitimate playoff contender” — is, in the light of recent events, completely stupid.

Since writing that column, the Jets have lost four straight, been outscored 19-12 and degenerated — in record time — into something just this side of a complete dumpster fire.

So, yeah, sorry about that.

But here’s the thing — I’ve got plenty of good company right now in the ‘wrong’ department.

Good to see you, Mark.

Pull up a chair, Chevy.

Hey, Paul — where are your glasses?

The announcement Tuesday morning that the Winnipeg Jets have recalled goaltender Ondrej Pavelec from the AHL’s Manitoba Moose is a lot of things — and we’ll get to those.

But at its root, calling up Pavelec at this point — with this team’s playoff hopes hanging by a thread and this club well on its way to another lost season — is a tacit admission by the leadership of the Jets franchise that they blew what was arguably the most important decision they made this season.

Sending Pavelec down to the AHL at the start of the season was controversial at the time and became increasingly more so as the season wore on as the Jets continued to receive below-average goaltending from both Connor Hellebuyck and Michael Hutchinson.

But what was controversial before became plain old wrong with Tuesday’s recall of Pavelec and the admission the Jets had thrown in the towel on their plan to make this season all about determining whether Hellebuyck is ready for prime time and the goaltender they want to build the future of this franchise upon.

Now, Hellebuyck might still be that goalie of the future for the Jets. But what has become crystal clear — and never more so than in the past week — is that Hellebuyck clearly isn’t the goaltender of the present and the Jets leadership — coach Paul Maurice, GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and co-owner Mark Chipman — were wrong when they thought he might be.

While he’s been spectacular at times this season, Hellebuyck’s been, more than anything, wildly inconsistent — between games and even within games.

On far too many nights, he has given up the one bad goal that has left his team chasing the play the rest of the night. And on the nights it wasn’t a bad goal, it was Hellebuyck’s failure to make the big save at the big moments — the kind of saves that are the bread and butter of elite NHL goaltenders — that has sunk his team.

About the best you can say about Hellebuyck this season is that on the nights the Jets got exceptionally strong team defence and at least three goals, the man was serviceable.

Or at least he was until the Jets decided in the past couple weeks to make him this team’s de facto No. 1 starter.

Handed the job he’d waited his entire life for, Hellebuyck wilted under the pressure and the workload. His sixth consecutive start — last Wednesday against Montreal — was an unmitigated disaster as he was pulled after giving up three goals in just seven shots.

His seventh consecutive start — last Friday against Arizona — was even worse. He was pulled after yielding three goals in the first six shots.

That is not the play of a goaltender ready to be handed the keys to an NHL franchise; it is the play of a goalie who has been handed those keys much too soon.

There’s a reason you shouldn’t buy your 16-year-old their own car. The kid and the car tend to end up wrapped around a tree.

And Hutchinson? He’s been this season all he’s ever been — a below average NHL goaltender the Jets always intended to expose in June’s Las Vegas expansion draft.

There was no reason to think Hutchinson would ever be anymore than that, so don’t blame him for this season’s troubles. Past performance is the most reliable indicator of future performance and the best — and worst — thing you can say about Hutchinson this season is he has performed precisely to expectation.

So what now? Well, as a guy who has covered a lot of Blue Bombers football, I can tell you there’s a reason why the backup quarterback is always the most popular man in town — it’s because he hasn’t played yet.

And what will be interesting to see now is how all the fans who have been clamouring for Pavelec’s return enjoy it now that he’s back and, presumably, starting again in net, at least for the foreseeable future.

While he’s been playing better lately — witness a 43-save performance over the weekend — Pavelec hasn’t exactly been lighting it up this season in the AHL, as evidenced by his modest .917 save percentage and 2.78 goals against average.

All of which is to say Pavelec looks to me to be more of a Band-Aid than a cure for what ails the Jets. And that is the most damning indictment possible of the way the Jets have handled their goaltending this year.

Look, I’m not convinced the Jets would have been better off this season if Hutchinson had been sent down at the start of the year and Pavelec was allowed to mentor Hellebuyck through another season.

But what is clear — and there’s nothing better than a 20-23-4 record in mid-January to clear the head — is that it was a mistake to ever think the tandem of Hellebuyck and Hutchinson was going to be good enough to get the team through this season, especially with a young roster that was always going to need a reliable backstop to bail them out of the mistakes they were inevitably going to make.

If the decision was to move on from Pavelec last September, then the Jets needed at that point to make a trade for an experienced netminder who would allow them to bring Hellebuyck along slowly this season.

But that never happened. The only option the team has left now — with what’s left of this season in tatters — is to go back to the guy they turned their back on in the first place.

Look, maybe Pavelec will get hot. It wouldn’t be the first time the Czech put this Jets team on his back and dragged them into the playoffs — remember that run he put together in 2015 to earn the Jets what is still their one and only playoff appearance?

But from my vantage point, this all looks like much too little, much too late.

And if I’m right, then the Jets were wrong.

Fellas, welcome to the club.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek