Chevy: Jets didn’t earn right to be in playoffs

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This article was published 11/04/2016 (3703 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff knows what his team was doing exactly a year ago, but he would not connect it to today and say his team should be in the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, which start later this week.

“You could sit here and say ‘Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve,’ but you’ve got to play the games,” Cheveldayoff said this afternoon in his season-ending address to reporters at the MTS Centre. “You’ve got to play the 82 games and you have to earn it. We didn’t earn the right to be a playoff team this year. That’s plain and simple. You can’t deny that fact.

“But what you also can’t deny is there have been positive steps that have been taken with this organization. You saw a lot of guys have career years. You saw Dustin Byfuglien make a commitment to what he sees going on internally and lives each and every day. He had an opportunity to somewhere else, so-called greener pastures, but he chose to stay here because he likes what’s going on.

“I met with all those guys today. They’re disappointed. We’re all disappointed. But at the same token, again, there has been growth.” Cheveldayoff and Jets coach Paul Maurice met with players today before they scattered for the off-season.

The Jets finished their 35-39-8 season Saturday, finishing last in the Central with 78 points, a decline of 21 from a year ago when they qualified for the post-season.

The point total, the club’s lowest since the 2011 relocation, combined with the losing record (currently 25-40-9) of the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, amounted to a lot of defeats this season.

Cheveldayoff was asked about his concerns in exposing so many of the team’s young players to that environment. “I would be (concerned) if the environment… was one of acceptance,” the GM said. “I can talk about the two situations differently here.

“With the Moose, we said right from the beginning that this reincarnation of the Moose was going to be different than what the old Moose was. We turned nine guys pro last year and different levels of guys… and you sign these players to three-year, entry-level contracts and you get three years to make decisions on these players.

“What we don’t want to have, as an organization that’s trying to develop young players, is to not get an understanding of them until they’re in their third year. You need to understand where those players are at in Year 1. You need to have them struggle at different points of time and give them opportunities to spread their wings.

“We consciously said we’re going to give those guys chances. I hate to say it’s never about winning at the AHL level because it’s certainly about that, but it’s about winning the right way and having those guys appreciate it.

“Watching that (Moose) game the other day, they went down two goals and you think the tent’s going to be folded. Then they come back and go down two goals again, and now you think this time it’s really going to get folded.

“But they battled back and to see Brendan Lemieux score that goal and see Chase De Leo score those goals, that’s what the growth of young guys is.” On the NHL side of that equation, Cheveldayoff eagerly touted some of the team’s young success stories.

“Nikolaj Ehlers was certainly a guy who came in and at the beginning of the season he was playing third-line minutes and at different points in time was moving up and down the lineup,” he said.

“But if you look at the way he finished at the end with how he was playing, who he was playing with but even more so, when the guys go to Paul Maurice and say, ‘I want to play with Nikolaj. Give me the opportunity to play with a young guy like him.’ Those are the kind of things that internally you start to get excited about because of where he’s come to and where he’s at.”

The Jets were near the low end of the NHL in terms of cap spending in 2015-16 and they are blessed with plenty of cap space for next season. He said the team’s spending habits have been part of the long-term plan, the doling out contracts haphazardly is a recipe for disaster. “You see a lot of July 1 contracts that are certainly the signings that are in vogue,” he said. “They make the headlines and they make people all excited, but then when you sit back and look and say, ‘How’s this going to affect me two, three, four years from now when I have to pay some of these young guys if they hit performance we hope they’re going to?’ From that standpoint, we make conscious decisions that you have to project, not only for contracts that come in in one year, but two and three and four and five.

“We have to put in where we think some of these guys’ contracts may come in. In order to keep players that are not even entering into their prime, but starting to enter into it and beyond years beyond their prime, you have to have that salary-cap space.

“It’s not necessarily a dollar-set figure, that you must spend only this. The other side of it is, if you’re going to spend money, then why?

“What are the short-term, long-term and medium-term ramifications of that money spent? If you just sit back and look where we are right now from a dollar figure and say we have lots of space and lots of room, there’s lots of teams in this league that don’t.

“We’ve got the space, we’ve got the availability and we’ll sit down with the different agents to deal with our own players and we know we have the flexibility, whether we want to go short-term on bridge deals or long-term contracts if they make sense. But if you make some decisions along the way that handcuff you, the players that don’t fit after a year or two, then you’re in deep trouble.”

The GM was also asked about some of the criticism his coaching staff received this season, not only for the decline in the standings, but for the team’s dismal performance in special teams, 25th in penalty killing and 30th in power play in the 30-team league.

“First and foremost, I have nothing but confidence and respect for the coaching staff we have in place,” Cheveldayoff said. “I watch them, I talk to them on a daily basis. From a player’s standpoint, they’re extremely prepared. From the X’s and O’s standpoint, it’s there. From a communications standpoint, it’s there.

“Special teams have certainly been a sore point. At points in time last year, not necessarily as much. Certainly this year it’s not where you need it to be. That’s an aspect of where we finished where we finished, but it’s not the only thing.

“We’re going to continue to discuss it and work on it and on the ice, there has to be some execution as well. You can plan, practise, diagram, video but again, execution is a part of it.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

— with files from Ed Tait