Still plenty of reasons to stay tuned to the Jets (despite playoff hopes being all but dead)

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This article was published 22/03/2017 (3157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Here’s a question for fans of the Winnipeg Jets: who’s staying up past bedtime on back-to-back nights to watch a .500 hockey club either go through the motions or put in the hard work necessary to keep a modest winning streak alive?

More to the point, does anyone care about anything that happens from now until the players clean out their lockers?

The Jets, 3-0-1 in their past four games, travelled to Los Angeles Wednesday to face the Kings tonight at the Staples Center (9:30 p.m.). Just shy of 24 hours later, they hook up with the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center (9 p.m.).

Winnipeg’s tidy 3-2 victory Tuesday over an uninspired Philadelphia Flyers squad at the MTS Centre raised the Central Division side’s record to 33-33-7. Winnipeg is 10 points back of the Nashville Predators for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference with nine games left to play.

The Jets are all but assured to be playoff outsiders for the fifth time in six NHL seasons since the franchise relocated from Atlanta.

Still, let’s examine a few reasons to stay engaged until about 9 p.m. April 8 when the Jets congregate at centre ice at the MTS Centre and hoist their sticks to honour their supporters for the last time this NHL season.

 

THE CALDER RACE

Rookie scoring sensation Patrik Laine’s pursuit of the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie will dominate the conversation in the Manitoba capital over the next few weeks.

The kid with the golden gun from Tampere, Finland, is a threat to score every time he has the puck in enemy territory. He has 33 goals and his 60 points led all rookies heading into Wednesday’s action, despite missing eight games with a concussion.

Laine was chosen second overall by Winnipeg in last summer’s NHL Draft, behind Toronto Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews — the guy he’s battling for the Calder. (Matthews had scored 32 goals and added 25 assists prior to the Leafs’ battle Wednesday night with the host Columbus Blue Jackets. Matthews potted a power-play goal in a 5-2 Leafs win.) 

The 18-year-old right-winger, who represented the Jets at the all-star weekend in Los Angeles, is tied for fourth in the NHL in goals and leads all shooters with three hat tricks. He’s the first player in league history to fire three hat tricks before his 19th birthday and was the league’s rookie of the month for February.

Laine hasn’t lit the lamp in three consecutive games and has just one goal in his past five. But he’s got 10 goals in his last 15 games after a deadly stretch of mid-February sniping.

Matthews will have the backing of the eastern press. Just last month, a panel of 13 writers for NHL.com listed the Scottsdale, Ariz., native as the favourite to grab the rookie hardware.

The Jets phenom, who has already demonstrated exceptional maturity, focus and passion for the game, needs to catch fire again — and in a hurry.

Laine says the rookie scoring title isn’t a focus, but don’t buy it. This mini-drought is probably burning a hole in his gut. He was seen punishing his stick on the bench Tuesday moments after missing a point-blank chance from the slot.

He knows Teemu Selanne. He wants to be Alex Ovechkin. He covets the Calder.

 

HELLEBUYCK’S FINISH

If Laine’s sensational stickwork has been the most intriguing plot of the 2016-17 campaign, surely the inconsistency of starting goaltender Connor Hellebuyck deserves second billing.

The 23-year-old former U.S. college star from Commerce, Mich., was officially handed the reins during training camp. But, really, the decision to put some space between perennial No. 1 puck-stopper Ondrej Pavelec and the Jets’ locker room was a fait accompli well before head coach Paul Maurice announced his final cuts in October.

Hellebuyck was ordained as the goalie of now and the future.

The trouble is, all previous accolades — winning the Mike Richter Award as the top netminder in U.S. college hockey, being named an American Hockey League all-star, backstopping the Americans to a gold medal at the 2015 world championship — haven’t seemed to help him handle the enormous pressure that comes with earning a living as an NHL starter.

Hellebuyck is 23-18-4, with a 2.90 goals-against average and .907 save percentage — mediocre numbers at best.

He’s shown flashes of brilliance, earning four shutouts. Among them are a fine 42-save performance in a 3-0 home-ice victory over Nashville in late November and a 29-save effort in a 3-0 win over the visiting St. Louis Blues on March 3.

But he’s had far too many short nights. Hellebuyck was pulled Sunday for the eighth time this season after stopping 31 of 35 Minnesota Wild shots. Michael Hutchinson made 13 saves in relief and Winnipeg earned a 5-4 triumph.

Hutchinson got the start, and the win, Tuesday against the Flyers. But there’s no logic to having Hellebuyck do anything but run the table now.

It’s garbage time, but in the eyes of the organization, he’s still the No. 1 guy for the long haul, even if he spends a year or two under the mentorship of a newly acquired Ben Bishop, Scott Darling, Marc-André Fleury or some reasonable facsimile for a year or two.

 

POSSIBLE PROMOTIONS

A pair of blue-chip Winnipeg prospects are housed in the same building the Jets call home, so it’s no great secret what centre Jack Roslovic and winger Kyle Connor, both only 20, have accomplished lately with the Manitoba Moose of the AHL.

The Jets pride themselves on allowing players to develop at their own pace and then adding them to the lineup when it’s most appropriate.

After a dominant year at the University of Michigan, Connor turned pro and wowed everyone at his first NHL training camp. Upon reflection, plugging him into the opening-night roster and then watching him flounder for 19 games — a stint that included an injury — before sending him to the Moose was a mistake. He was a slight kid with no pro experience.

Down on the farm, Connor has shone, scoring 21 goals and adding 17 assists in 44 games. He’s exceptionally skilled and has both speed and terrific hockey sense.

Meanwhile, Roslovic — like Connor, a former first-round pick out of U.S. college hockey — is putting up impressive numbers with the Moose. He, too, inked a pro deal and left school after just one year, and has already turned heads, ripping 12 goals and adding 28 assists in 56 games on the Jets’ struggling AHL affiliate.

The terrific tandem could get called up by the NHL club as the season winds down, but would they really play meaningful minutes? If not, expect them to remain with the Moose to continue their development.

 

ADDED PROTECTION

Player moves are a part of the business of hockey. Valued and respected teammates are traded away or sign deals with competing organizations all the time.

This summer, however, the Jets will lose a contracted player for nothing. In fact, all 30 squads will lose one relatively key contributor off their rosters during the June expansion draft when the Vegas Golden Knights stock up on playing personnel.

Clubs have two options: protect one goalie, three defencemen and seven forwards, or a netminder and any combination of eight forwards and blue-liners. (First- and second-year pros are exempt from the expansion draft. So, there’s no chance of losing Laine, solid rookie defenceman Josh Morrissey, or forwards Nikolaj Ehlers, Nic Petan, Roslovic and Connor.)

Teams must make available at least one defenceman and two forwards who have played 40 NHL games this season or 70 over the past two.

Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff and his staff have some critical thinking to do about who they feel they can live without.

Hellebuyck, forwards Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Bryan Little, and defenceman Jacob Trouba are all locks to be protected, and because of no-movement clauses in their contracts, blue-liners Dustin Byfuglien and Toby Enstrom can’t be exposed.

Do the Jets roll the dice and make veteran forward Mathieu Perreault available to Vegas GM George McPhee?

The 29-year-old native of Drummondville, Que., who signed a four-year, US$16.5-million contract extension in July that carries through to the end of 2020-21, is playing his best hockey of the season on a line with Scheifele and Wheeler. He spoke candidly the other day, conceding he’s vulnerable but emphasizing he wants to stick with the Cheveldayoff/Maurice program.

However, with Connor and Roslovic waiting in the wings, Perreault could be expendable, as the Jets may feel the cash could be allocated to extending Trouba, if he’s willing, or Little.

Others that might be left unprotected include injured defenceman Tyler Myers, third-line centre Adam Lowry and wingers Joel Armia and Andrew Copp.

Indeed, beyond two mostly meaningless points in the Western Conference standings, there’s much to play for — for several Jets — in the final nine games.

Consider brewing a pot of coffee to stay awake and alert.

 

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell