‘Everyone needs to look in the mirror’

RALEIGH — The Winnipeg Jets celebrated American Thanksgiving here on Thursday, sitting down together as a team to enjoy turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings.

What they really need is a different type of feast: goals and, most importantly, wins. Starved for secondary scoring, they’ve dropped seven of their last 10 games, including three straight, as they spiral down the NHL standings.

You know the old saying “misery loves company?” That could describe every Winnipeg forward right now excluding the top trio of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabe Vilardi. They’re not just leading the offence. They are the offence, along with No. 1 defenceman Josh Morrissey.

Head coach Scott Arniel has tried juggling the lines, which some might compare at this point to re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. There’s been additional video sessions and speeches about “going to the hard areas” and “getting a greasy one.” And yet, the problems persist.

“To be a successful team, someone has to step up every night. We can’t expect it to be Scheifele’s line very night,” Cole Perfetti told the Free Press on Thursday following his team’s optional practice at Lenovo Center, where they’ll face the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday afternoon.

“I don’t think it’s lack of effort or lack of trying. I think all three of the other lines are working our asses off. Puck’s just not going in right now.”

The numbers tell the story. Perfetti has one goal in eight games since returning from a high-ankle sprain. Gustav Nyquist — signed in the off-season to partly fill the scoring void left by Nikolaj Ehlers — is still without a goal in 17 games. Vlad Namestnikov has gone 10 games without a point, Alex Iafallo five.

Jonathan Toews and captain Adam Lowry each have one goal in 10 games. Nino Niederreiter (one goal in 12 games), Morgan Barron (one assist in 12), Tanner Pearson (one goal in 16), and Cole Koepke (two assists in 16) are also ice cold.

At what point does general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff start taking some heat for assembling a roster that, based on statistical production, contains far too many fourth-liners and fringe players? What if this is truly who they are, just one year removed from winning the Presidents’ Trophy as the top regular-season team in the NHL?

Not so fast, cautioned Perfetti.

“Everything regresses to the mean. The math always comes back to level. Right now I think everyone (except the top line) is obviously way below what reality should be,” he said. “You know, someone’s going to score, hopefully (Friday), and then I think the floodgates are going to open for everyone. We’re going to get the mojo and feel good about ourselves.”

Even a trickle of offence would be welcome at this point. The Jets have had more “expected goals” than their opponent in the three straight losses, but that’s little consolation. They need to start finishing those chances, especially with goaltender Connor Hellebuyck sidelined four-to-six weeks following arthroscopic knee surgery.

“We do need secondary scoring, no doubt about that. But we’ve shown over the last few years this team has that,” said Perfetti. “It’s going to flip the other way.”

Following Wednesday’s 4-3 loss in Washington to kick off this five-game road trip, Arniel conceded he may have no choice but to eventually break up his top line if the others can’t get going, and fast.

Consider this: A pair of stay-at-home defencemen with limited offensive upside in Dylan DeMelo (10 points) and Logan Stanley (nine points) currently sit sixth and seventh in overall team scoring. Great for them, not so great for the team as a whole.

“Everyone needs to look in the mirror. You know if you have more to give or not,” said DeMelo. “You know what you need to do to help our team out. Take care of that, stay positive, stay with it, continue to work hard. Just stay focused on the task at hand and worry about the next game.”

With the 12-10-0 Jets preparing to face the 14-7-2 Hurricanes and old friend Ehlers here in his new hockey home, you can’t help but wonder if the departure of the dazzling Dane in free agency hasn’t done more damage than many anticipated. Namestnikov and Perfetti seem adrift without their former linemate.

“You just have to keep working through it,” insisted Namestnikov. “This happens throughout a season. You’re only going to get out of it through hard work and doing little things the right way. I think the main thing is don’t get frustrated. I know it’s not ideal, obviously a lot of guys are in slumps, but we’re going to have to work at it together.”

Thursday’s skate was optional. Namestnikov, Lowry, Iafallo, Toews, Scheifele and Connor stayed off the ice, as did Arniel, leaving his assistants to run the rest of the group. There were no line rushes, so we’ll have to wait until Friday’s late afternoon puck drop to see if any tweaks are made.

“I think right now we’re tending to get away from the net. When you’re in a slump you should go to the net,” Namestnikov said of what he thinks the group’s biggest issue is right now.

“Be more simple, more predictable.”

The Jets will play six games over the next nine days, including two sets of back-to-backs. That creates an opportunity to turn things around quickly — or dig an even deeper hole.

“Every team is going to go through a rough patch this year. We’re getting ours out of the way early,” said Perfetti. “You go on a four, five game run here and confidence gets going, now you’re feeling good about yourselves, you climb up the standings a little bit and you’re in a spot you want to be.”

Last season, the Jets set the bar high with a 15-1-0 start en route to a 56-22-4 campaign. Now they enter Friday’s game sitting sixth in the Central Division, 12th in the Western Conference (three points out of a playoff spot), and 26th overall based on points.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen?

“You don’t think about last year too much, but at the same time we have a lot of new guys on the team. I think we’re still learning how to play with each other,” said Namestnikov.

“It’s a new year, a new team, and we just have to figure out a way to win games this year.”

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