Jets’ flaws might be too big to fix

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/01/2016 (3898 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Every movement — from the way Paul Maurice violently pulled on his suit jacket while exiting the visitor’s dressing room, to his stomping up to the Winnipeg Jets backdrop to meet the media — seemed to embody the man’s frustration and anger.

The coach took but one question after Thursday’s 4-2 loss to the Arizona Coyotes in which two boneheaded penalties were critical in the defeat — “How tough is that to swallow after coming back from 2-1?” — and then launched into an 82-second rant between clenched teeth before ending the session. He called out the inconsistent work of the officials in the process and also fired some serious shots at the men in his own dressing room.

The juiciest part, and it was all absolutely riveting, was this:

“I’m going to try and come up with a solution here in the next 24 hours, because we somehow are expecting things to change every night. I don’t know if they’re looking for fairness or what the hell they expect is going to happen on the ice, but we’ve seen it enough.

“You can’t take the penalties that we took. You just can’t. You can bitch about the calls all you want, but if you’re sitting there expecting consistency or quality, you’re not coming to any of the games we play.”

That’s where the Jets find themselves today, readying for the second stop of a five-game road trip that has been billed as season-defining. Friday, New Year’s Day, was a scheduled off day and you can bet Maurice didn’t spend it watching bowl games and humming the chorus to Auld Lang Syne.

But, let’s ask this in the wake of another breakdown in discipline that directly led to another loss: What, exactly, are the coach’s options here in an attempt to fix this?

Does he bag skate a team that plays San Jose and Anaheim today and Sunday in another back-to-back?

Does he cut the ice time of someone such as Tyler Myers — whose roughing penalty led to the game-winner in Arizona — knowing he has been one of the Jets best players of late?

Does he further demote Andrew Ladd, who took a slashing penalty as time expired at the end of the second that also led to a goal — he’s already off the top line with compadres Bryan Little or Blake Wheeler — knowing no player has scored more game-winning goals (20) since the franchise’s relocation than the team’s captain?

Would he go one step further, banishing him to the press box or stripping him of the “C,” knowing he is respected in the room and a guy the franchise is trying to re-sign?

Does he storm into the dressing room, flip over table and kick the snot out a Gatorade jug as part of some sort of mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-any-more attention-grabbing scene?

Or is it some sort of combination of all of the above?

A take, from this perch: none of it is going to have any kind of lasting impact beyond a couple of games, at the absolute best.

If you were to ask around the NHL for a scouting report on the Jets — from coaches, GMs, media and fans — the consensus is they are a big, quick, hard-skating club… but prone to taking some really dumb-ass penalties at critical times. Been there, seen that.

It cost them at least a point in a game they were dominating territorially Thursday night. And — guaran-damn-teed — there will be another dumb penalty before this road trip is done. That’s this team. A year ago it was a trait that was lauded — “It’s who we are” — while that bunch was celebrated for its resiliency en route to the post-season.

Now, with the team seven points out of a playoff spot and just five from last overall, it’s been repeatedly exposed as a character flaw.

So, Maurice can scroll through the coach’s handbook looking for answers, whether the discipline is benchings or beatings. And the men in the room can hold players-only meetings from sunrise to sunset, vowing to be more accountable to each other. But, let’s face it, this isn’t anything that can be changed overnight. The Jets, collectively, can’t magically morph into a team that is hard on pucks and finishing punishing checks all while turning the other cheek at any sign of provocation.

Sometimes there are no ready-made, black-and-white solutions. This is who the Jets are — unless they start changing the pieces in advance of the Feb. 29 trade deadline. The only Band-Aid, if this crew is going to continue to beat a path to the penalty box, is to at least bring their comatose power play back to life.

That’s no doubt on Maurice’s to-do list as well. But as the calendar turns to 2016 the team’s biggest issue might be one, try as he may, that he simply can’t fix.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait