Extreme makeover

Opinion

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This article was published 30/03/2016 (3478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One by one they filtered into the Winnipeg Jets dressing room… Marko Dano, then Alex Burmistrov, Jacob Trouba, Joel Armia and Nikolaj Ehlers. J.C. Lipon, still recovering from a bum shoulder was there, too. And Nic Petan, Chase De Leo, Andrew Copp…

And then it hits you like a slap across the face: we are all aging by the second, but this Jets team seems to be getting younger by the day.

It’s by design, of course, as the Jets — long since out of the playoff picture — have been shutting down guys with lingering injuries for a while now and replacing them with prospects. And it started before that with the off-season departures of Michael Frolik, Lee Stempniak and Jiri Tlusty, which then led into more change this winter with captain Andrew Ladd traded, veteran defenceman Adam Pardy cut adrift and so on and so on.

Let’s just say the path from the Manitoba Moose dressing room to the Jets home is more beaten down and weathered than Portage Avenue.

Just how extreme has this makeover to youth been for the Jets this season? Consider this: the newest Jet — former Providence College star Brandon Tanev, officially signed Wednesday — has yet to dress for an NHL game but is already older than nine men in the Jets locker room.

All of this has led to an intriguing training-camp-during-the-regular-season situation for the Jets, where head coach Paul Maurice is moving pieces around and throwing players into different situations as if it was late September, not the end of March.

It’s also led to a game we’re all playing these days as Jets Nation and those who chronicle this team’s every move try to predict what the opening-night roster might look like next October. Some have Kyle Connor pencilled in as a second-line winger, many others have their fingers crossed a score at the draft lottery could drop an Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine or Jesse Puljujarvi into the top six as well.

There’s Tucker Poolman from North Dakota, Connor Hellebuyck and Josh Morrissey with the Moose, Brendan Lemieux with the Windsor Spitfires and a whole bunch of dudes who have got a look-see here lately but will be on the bubble again when camp opens.

But a couple of questions, as all this youth is being served now and likely next fall:

How much change is too much? And is there a danger in kicking vets to the curb knowing full well some of these fresh faces might not be NHL ready next fall?

The issue was put to Maurice Wednesday after the morning skate.

“That’s a big part of what this year was: getting to know the young players that come in and where they fit for next year and what kind of players they need around them to help them develop and to help us win at the same time,” said the Jets coach.

“At the start of the year we brought in four new forwards (Ehlers, Petan, Burmistrov and Copp); a third of our forward group was new. Now, looking at some other guys… Armia comes in and the Tanev signing. That’s a big bulk of what we’re trying to take out at the end of the year. You can put it on the board and you have a better idea of what your young players need to continue to help us win. Then you get to training camp and it’s a competition again.

“So, if a young player comes in and is just better, then we’re going to get better and you’ll have to try and balance it as best you can. (Veterans) would not lose a job on age, but if a player is just better then that happens every year on every team.”

All of which is to say that next September’s camp is going to be positively riveting. It’s not only going to feature all these fresh young faces scrapping for jobs, but veteran pieces like Chris Thorburn and Mark Stuart trying to hang on to theirs and squeeze more out of their careers.

That said, they are the important influencers now, the guys the Jets have opted to keep around — and keep in the lineup during all this change — to instill a certain work ethic and hammer home what has happened this year can’t be accepted.

But will there still be a value in that come next fall?

“I met with five of the veteran guys before the Philadelphia game and realized there were only five of them,” Maurice said. “Now, we’ve got four veteran guys out of our lineup and we’re not talking about them, but it’s natural at this time of year that we’re talking about the kids.”

Interestingly, if this team gets even younger next season — and that certainly looks to be the master plan — then more of the same should be expected in the win-lost column. Maybe even less. That’s both the risk and the promise of youth.

While opportunity is an easy sales pitch to make to a player such as Tanev, who reportedly had a dozen teams interested in him, the youth movement must be a hard sell to the likes of Blake Wheeler, Bryan Little, Drew Stafford and Mathieu Perreault.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait