Scheifele will fly high

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This article was published 16/09/2011 (5126 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PENTICTON, B.C. — In the reserved, button-down world of the NHL, one of management’s unwritten commandments must go something like this:

‘Thou shalt not be effusive with praise about prospects for fear their heads may swelleth.’

And Winnipeg Jets’ types, try as they may, did their damnedest to adhere to that through three games in four days at the Young Stars Tournament here in the picturesque Okanagan Valley.

But whenever Mark Scheifele’s name came up, well, it was an obvious struggle for them not to gush about the team’s first-round draft pick from June.

Three games: two goals and one assist (a second helper should have been credited to him in Thursday’s win over Vancouver) and enough glimpses of greatness to have those in the know quietly mouthing one word to describe his play:

Wow.

“You’ve heard the story,” said Jets’ head scout Mark Hillier after Thursday’s tournament finale. “He’s one year removed from Junior B hockey. He played one year of major junior on the worst team in the OHL. He played with a lot of kids in Barrie that weren’t established players but this kid ended up with 50-something assists with that team.

“He went to (Canada’s) under-18 team and was their best player… We just feel good about what we’ve seen here. It’s an affirmation of what we were thinking.

“We just think he’s starting up the mountain and there’s going to be a lot better things to come.”

Yes, there were some ‘What were they thinking?’ questions when the Jets went off the board a bit at the NHL draft to grab Scheifele seventh overall, especially with world junior centre Sean Couturier still available.

But no one is wondering now.

“He’s a highly skilled player,” said St. John’s IceCaps head coach Keith McCambridge, the man who worked the bench and ran practices here for the Jets. “His one-on-one play, his vision… everything we’ve talked about during the week here. He’s a bona fide star.”

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Engaging, polite and quick to smile, what the Jets also saw this week in Scheifele was a kid — he is still just 18 — who does have a competitive fire burning deep inside. He didn’t treat this tournament as just three exhibition games, he approached it like he had something to prove — to the Jets, to his peers, to the rest of the NHL and to himself.

“I wanted to come out and show that I was worth the pick and so I wanted to take the opportunity and run with it,” said Scheifele. “I think I did a pretty good job of that.”

And now the question is how he will manage when he lines up against the grown men during main training camp, opening on Saturday. It’s one thing to dart around a kid on a free-agent contract, can he do it while staring down a Zach Bogosian, Tobias Enstrom or Dustin Byfuglien?

“Now it gets even bigger,” said Scheifele. “So I’ve got to step my game up. I’m going to work even harder to play my best and do my best to show I can play against NHLers.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPEdTait