When wins mean nothing

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This article was published 29/09/2014 (4019 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It has been said and written many times before that NHL pre-season hockey is akin to watching a tree form its annual ring. And even after a long summer when arenas are dark, most exhibition shinny tilts still have as much entertainment value as a Pauly Shore film festival.

The point here is, it’s ridiculous to draw any conclusions — thumbs up or thumbs down — from what unfolds from the dress rehearsals before the puck drops on the real games next week. After all, there is no President’s Trophy for finishing atop the pre-season standings, where teams often roll through prospect-stocked lineups or split squads at neutral sites.

Does winning or losing in the pre-season really matter?

“From my experience, no, not really,” Jets captain Andrew Ladd said Sunday. “I think, in terms of habits and how you’re working, that definitely would translate. But in terms of wins and losses, I’ve been on teams like in Chicago where we didn’t win a game and ended up winning the Stanley Cup.

“Ultimately, (winning) doesn’t matter. But we want to be getting good habits and doing the right things and really using it to catch on to systems and becoming a little bit more predictable to each other.”

Jets coach Paul Maurice said the club, 1-2 through three games, will ice a “young” squad tonight in Edmonton, the team’s fourth of seven pre-season contests. In the final three games fans can expect to see more of the regulars.

Now, as much as everyone insists exhibition games reveal nothing, it’s worth noting last year the Jets went 1-4-3 in September — including a 5-0 loss to Boston in their last contest before the regular season — and then opened with a 5-7-2 record in October that had them in chase mode from Halloween.

“That was last year. I’m focused on this year,” said Jets winger Blake Wheeler last week. “I like the way our team looks right now. I think we’re prepared and we came in with a different mindset this year. It’s an exciting time for us right now. Whatever happened in the past is in the past.”

Interestingly, of the five teams with the worst pre-season records last year — Philadelphia, New York Rangers, Nashville, Vancouver and the Jets — two had fired their coaches before the end of January (Winnipeg and the Flyers) with the Preds and Canucks dumping their coaches at season’s end.

And the counter to that? The Rangers were hardly rocked by their pre-season, recovering to become the Eastern Conference champions under Alain Vigneault.

Maurice is running his first camp with the Jets after replacing Claude Noel in January. The goal has been about implementing systems and testing prospects, as the team tries to establish an identity that is all about pace and a much higher commitment to defence.

But when asked how much the numbers on the scoreboard at the end of the night matter during the pre-season, Maurice was succinct:

“Not a whole lot,” he said. “Just go back to last year and find the teams that had great camps and played well in the pre-season. Edmonton… I watched those exhibition games last year and they were absolutely on fire, but it was a different tune a month in.

“You’ve seen good teams dress young lineups. That usually isn’t an indicator of their pre-season and has nothing to do with the start (of the season).

“So what I’m looking for every day is: Are we picking up a little bit better on our systems and keeping our work level and our intensity? That’s really the themes of camp.”

Still, the benefits from winning can be obvious. This is a franchise that has missed the playoffs in seven consecutive springs and winning at any time, be it September, January or March, could go a long way to changing the culture.

It might not help, but it sure as heck couldn’t hurt, either.

“It’s good to get a little confidence in the pre-season,” said Wheeler. “You want to feel good about yourself when the regular season starts. You don’t want to take these things too lightly and approach them the same way you would a typical game, so that your routine, your preparation is intact when the season starts and you can just go out there and play.”

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

THE DRESS REHEARSALS

A look at the year-by-year pre-season record of the Jets/Thrashers franchise:

Year	Record	Reg. Season	Playoffs
1999	3-3-2	14-57-11	none
2000	2-5-1	23-45-14	none
2001	4-2-1	19-47-16	none
2002	3-2-2	31-39-12	none
2003	5-3-0	33-37-12	none
2004	No season due to lockout
2005	3-4-0	41-33-8	none
2006	3-4-0	43-28-11	lost 1st rd.
2007	5-2-0	34-40-8	none
2008	1-5-0	35-41-6	none
2009	2-3-1	35-34-13	none
2010	0-5-1	34-36-12	none
2011	3-3-1	37-35-10	none
2012	No pre-season	24-21-3	none
2013	1-4-3	37-35-10	none

— Ed Tait