Maurice feels team fully capable of deep run in playoffs

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This article was published 11/04/2015 (3826 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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There’s relief, yes, but the overriding sentiment from Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice on Friday was confidence.

Confidence in what the Jets have accomplished by qualifying for the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs in the Western Conference and confidence in the possibilities for the tournament itself, and the future.

The Jets secured their berth Thursday night as the second wild-card. They kept up the heat on the outside-looking-in L.A. Kings by taking their game in Colorado to overtime and a shootout (eventually losing 1-0 despite outshooting the Avs 41-21 in their own building). Five minutes after that was done, the Kings were 3-1 losers in Calgary, locking the Flames and Jets into the post-season.

“I don’t feel that at all,” Maurice said Friday, asked if got any sense that his team will think just making the playoffs will be good enough for this season. “We have 97 and we may have 99 points when we’re done. So we’re not coming in with 88 and (will) be 25 points behind the team we play.

“Also, we did this in the toughest division (the Central) in hockey. The bottom two teams that won’t make it will still be 15 or so games over. 500. That’s not true of any other division.”

Maurice noted the Jets, after a poor three weeks to start the 2014-15 season, were largely a picture of consistency and focus.

“People on the outside of it had a bigger sense of relief (Thursday) than the people on the inside of it,” he suggested. “We were right there in that playoff hole for most of the year and kind of fell out of it, not out of weakness or faltering, but everybody kept winning. So we feel like we’re going through the front door on this.”

Maurice also made it clear earning a playoff berth is not the end game for himself or the Jets organization. He said the process remains ongoing to build the team’s identity and evaluate what’s currently on the roster and develop what’s coming.

He then spoke briefly about his own role, mainly as the director of support for the players.

“We have three exceptional captains,” he said, naming Andrew Ladd, Blake Wheeler and Mark Stuart but reminding all there is a broader buy-in from the entire team.

“But those three guys, on practices and games, they just don’t take a day off. So there’s the identity of your hockey team built by your captains.

“Our job as a staff was to give them a framework they could best use and best focus those competitive efforts they were putting in.

“It’s maybe part of the reason Ondrej Pavelec’s gotten a rough ride here, that (some thought) the team was right there, they just needed a goaltender to get them into the playoffs. That was absolutely not true.

“They needed a group to get together in one direction. Their effort was good. Their compete is good. They’re good men. And we’re still in the process.

“It’s as tight a group of guys that I’ve ever coached.”

Maurice said the team has room to improve, but nobody’s going to make them compete or care any harder than they already have.

“The difference in this room from what I’ve seen in the past is that this room found a way to stay very, very close during its adversity,” he said. “When we lost those four D and then lost that night (Jan. 5 with five seconds to play) to San Jose at home when we had five defencemen injured, nobody survives that. Not long-term. Except these guys found a way to do it. The big part was that we brought some guys in to help survive it. That will be one of the key stories, the timing of the trades that happened.”

As for today’s roster against the Calgary Flames at the MTS Centre (2 p.m., TSN3, TSN 1290), Maurice said some lines will be unrecognizable.

The coach said he’s not resting anybody, but will hold out several players, “that I think can get better by not playing.

“We’ve had some sickness go through our team,” he said.

Bryan Little and Pavelec will be held out on that basis. It means that Michael Hutchinson is going to start in goal today. Connor Hellebuyck has been recalled from the AHL’s St. John’s IceCaps to be the backup.

The Jets will have defenceman Toby Enstrom back from injury (four games) and probably Dustin Byfuglien, now his four-game suspension is over.

Left-winger Mathieu Perreault won’t play today after leaving Thursday’s game with a lower-body issue. Maurice said the injury wasn’t “catastrophic.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

 

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