Maurice’s remake of Jets showing results, but players haven’t fully bought in yet

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This article was published 04/11/2014 (4050 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Paul Maurice’s remake of the Winnipeg Jets is beginning to take hold.

While some variables could yet be implemented in the plan, one thing we know for sure is, it is going to take time.

The Jets are out of sync. They’re figuring out how to be a better defensive team and that’s come at a cost. They can’t score right now. Winning 1-0, like they’ve done in their last two outings, is impossible to sustain in the long term.

They Jets are in the middle of a perpetual cold shower. They need to figure out how to get some more hot water into the stream, but that balance isn’t easy to achieve. The Jets aren’t there. Time, the development of young players and maybe even some personnel tinkering will be needed.

The Jets’ fourth line is a black hole right now. Two of the team’s top three centres are only 21. GM Kevin Cheveldayoff is the architect of a draft, develop and retain model. Maurice has to work within that framework and patience is a necessary virtue.

Winnipeg is winning this week, but it’s by the thinnest and most frantic of margins.

Maurice’s philosophy is just beginning to take hold. The foundation is still shaky. The coach is trying to get this team to adopt the basic fundamentals of team defence and the offence has suffered for it. He’s teaching them to walk right now. Chewing gum can come later.

The Jets have offensively talented players on the roster, and if they can first wrap their heads around playing the game Maurice’s way, the goals will come. It just might take some time for these players to rethink the way they approach the game and secondly, execute in a defence-first style of game.

The numbers show a team figuring out how to keep the puck out of their own net. Unfortunately, while they’ve been doing this, the Jets have forgotten how to put the puck in the opposition net.

Winnipeg sat eighth in the league in goals-against with a 2.08 average on Monday. They finished last season 22nd in the league at 2.82. Fourteen of the top 16 teams in goals against were playoff teams last season.

The other side of the equation sees the Jets struggling to score. They’re 28th in the league with a 1.75 goals per game average.

Despite being a top-10 team defensively, the Jets have a goal differential of minus-four. Only one team made the post-season last year with a negative goal differential. Five-on-five goal differential, next to points from wins, is the most telling statistic in hockey. The Jets must find more balance in this area, but a defensive foundation needed to be installed first. The offence will eventually come. Keep in mind, Winnipeg lost two of its top-six forwards to injury in the first game of the season. Evander Kane was removed entirely from the lineup with a knee injury while Michael Frolik suffered an undisclosed injury that saw him drop from the No. 1 line to the No. 3 line. Not many teams in the NHL can withstand two losses to its top six and not have its offence suffer.

The Jets have scored 21 goals in 12 games. The Tampa Bay Lightning lead the league, having popped 42 in 12 games.

Is Winnipeg’s defence this good? No. Is the offence this bad? No. They’ll level out at some point. How far they sink defensively and how far they rise on the offensive side will tell the tale of this season.

But the big picture, the effect Maurice will have on the Jets long term, will take longer to grow its roots. It started this off-season with a push for better fitness. Now he’s demanding different practice habits. Maurice has installed systems he thinks match his personnel and now he’s pounding his players to adhere to the structure.

Maurice was steadfast in what he had to say about his goaltending last season. The goalies’ numbers were suffering as a result of poor team defence. When the defence came around, so too would the numbers.

Ondrej Pavelec was the fall guy and his save percentage of .901 was viewed by many as the biggest reason the Jets were a non-playoff team. Maurice was unwilling to push all the blame onto Pavelec’s plate.

The coach’s demands were clear heading into the off-season: Everyone must be better. And that included his goalie.

Pavelec worked on his fitness over the summer and made some tweaks to his game. So far, the returns have been good and his save percentage has risen to .921. But that statistic is a little phony just 12 games into the season. It takes a larger sample size to be truly meaningful. But so far, he’s been Winnipeg’s most consistent player.

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On this last road swing, which saw the Jets win three of four and bring home seven of a possible eight points, Pavelec was very good and at times brilliant. Should we anoint him as elite and forget the struggles we’ve seen the last few seasons? Certainly not. But he’s started 10 of the Jets’ 12 games and is a big part of that low goals-against number.

Maurice can talk about defence and push his players to play responsibly, but in the end it will be the men on the ice deciding the direction the Jets take. They will have to see the value in playing defence and not just running and gunning.

Wins like Saturday’s in New York, and even more so Sunday’s over the Chicago Blackhawks, can help cement such values.

Maurice, it appears, is getting his way right now. The players are playing his way. But getting them to make this style the way of the players, and not just to the coach, that’s going to take some more time.

gary.lawless@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @garylawless