A Barrie GOOD MOVE

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/10/2011 (5201 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As much as the Winnipeg Jets have a pretty good feeling about the first-round draft pick they made last June, it was left to coach Claude Noel to point out the cold reality of Sunday’s decision to send 18-year-old Mark Scheifele back to his junior team.

“It’s a men’s league,” Noel said about Scheifele’s first seven games in the NHL.

“I think his game is still good,” Noel said. “He’s a good player. I think he’s going to be a tremendous player. I don’t think anything has changed. I think the league… it’s a men’s league.”

Scheifele, the Kitchener, Ont., native, won many fans with his play and his smile in the pre-season, scoring eight points in five games.

It earned him a healthy entry-level contract just before the regular season started, at which time Noel had said that he’d be “stunned” if Scheifele would have to go back to the OHL’s Barrie Colts.

But seven games into the NHL season, with the Jets at 2-4-1 and Scheifele with just one goal — that in Toronto last Wednesday — it was becoming apparent that the assignment was a large one.

Scheifele’s icetime began to dwindle after the season opener. He played barely seven minutes last Monday against Pittsburgh, then just 7:21 on Saturday against Carolina.

Noel said Sunday he was not stunned at the outcome, and left it at that.

“I thought so but this is good for him,” he said.

With the pace of the regular-season games accelerating and the scrutiny increasing, it’s clear the Jets determined this was no time for experimenting.

“We deal in progress,” the coach said. “That’s what we’re trying to do. This is a good move for him. He’s going to learn a lot there. He has a good coach in Dale Hawerchuk. He’ll learn how to become a dominant player at that level and that’s the right move for him.”

Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff was more focused on the future than Sunday’s inevitable decision about Scheifele.

“We were very, very ecstatic about him coming in, the way he played in Penticton, what he did in the exhibition season and the way he handled himself at the NHL level in the regular season,” he said. “He showed that he thinks the game very well. He’s very responsible defensively, which at this stage of his career is a very, very good sign.”

But with a demanding seven-game road trip coming up, during which Scheifele would have been coming up on his 10th game, it was time to make the call.

If an 18- or 19-year-old player plays a 10th regular-season game, it counts for a full year on his contract no matter how many more games he plays.

“It just got to the point here now where we looked at the upcoming schedule with travel going to be coming into play,” Cheveldayoff said. “I’ve spoken to Dale Hawerchuk in Barrie and it’s going to be a great opportunity to go back to junior, play a pivotal role on a team that’s much improved and Dale’s obviously very excited for what he has in store for him this year.”

Hawerchuk was in Winnipeg last Monday and did confer with Jets management at that time.

During Saturday’s win over Carolina, television cameras caught a brief and apparently vigorous exchange between Scheifele and Noel on the Jets bench.

“It was just coaching,” Noel said. “I just treat him like I treat all the others. You treat young players with a little more sensitivity because they’re younger. But no, it was a coaching moment. There’s nothing attached to that other than coaching. You look for responses… that’s how you coach.”

Last season, Scheifele had 22 goals and 75 points in 66 games in his first year in major junior. His Colts team appears to be much improved this season, having won three in a row to be at 6-4 through 10 games.

Scheifele’s first possible OHL action is Wednesday in Belleville, Ont.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Mark Scheifele

STAY WITH JETS: 17 days

SALARY: $925,000

SALARY EARNED: $85,000

JETS’ CAP HIT: $149,000

MAXIMUM SALARY IN OHL:

$50 per week, plus room and board.