Experience not necessary: Jets will learn quickly what it takes in playoffs

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This article was published 14/04/2015 (3835 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Their roster’s 301 collective games of playoff experience isn’t nothing and the Winnipeg Jets hope to wring out of that what they can when they start the Stanley Cup playoffs Thursday night against the Anaheim Ducks.

As a group, they have no playoff resumé. You’ve got to start somewhere, right?

“They’re going to get all the experience they need in Game 1,” said Jets coach Paul Maurice, his own post-season resumé at 53 games and one trip to the final.

 

“They’re going to learn it. It’s a completely different animal in terms of the level and the intensity and it’s not easily explained. You have to go through it. At the same time, it’s just a whole lot more fun.

“When they get into that first game, they’ll realize just how much more fun… it doesn’t resemble anything else. The pace of this thing is going to be an eye-opener.”

The three important players in this area for the Jets are captain Andrew Ladd, who’s played 53 playoff games and has two Cup rings; defenceman Dustin Byfuglien, who has played 39 games and has one ring; and right-winger Michael Frolik, who has 34 games and one ring to his credit.

Asked what his experience could do for his Jets teammates in this regard, Ladd didn’t see it as a big deal.

“I guess maybe the best part is sharing the experience and how much fun it is,” he said. “Maybe at certain parts of the game, you’ve been through it before and you can lend some advice.

“But I think a lot of that is talked up a little too much sometimes in terms of how much it really matters. I think the type of player you are dictates whether you’re going to be successful in the playoffs or not. Even guys who haven’t played a playoff game at all could hit the ground running and be great right off the hop. Definitely, if we can help along the way, it would be better.”

Byfuglien downplayed the issue Monday.

‘I think the type of player you are dictates whether you’re going to be successful in the playoffs or not’

— Jets captain Andrew Ladd

“As long as you do your job, you’ll be all right,” he said. “At the end, I don’t think it comes down to having much (experience). You just have to know to fight through little things. Everyone’s going to be nervous. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be. A lot of guys have never been there and it’s a change.

“After the first five or 10 minutes, we’ll be fine. Just calm down. I think everyone will have little butterflies in their stomach, but this is the fun time to play. This is the time everyone should enjoy if they’re willing to sacrifice.”

Frolik said his experience has cemented one thing in his head, something he hopes to support with his Jets teammates.

“What I learned in Chicago is we always had that belief in ourselves, even when we were down and we were losing,” Frolik said. “I remember being down 3-1 (against Detroit in 2013) you could feel in the room we had the belief. We believed we could turn this thing around and we did and went all the way.

“That’s going to be the message, that we need to believe in ourselves, that we can beat anybody. If things go bad or (we’re) down, just make sure we rebound quickly.”

Ladd, who played his first post-season game in 2006, said his lack of experience that spring was no big deal.

“I was just excited to play an NHL playoff game,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about my lack of experience or anything else. It was just, get out there and try to run over someone and make something happen. I think players think of it differently. You’re just playing the game and reacting. And you’re not thinking about anything else.”

Byfuglien said there are similarities here with his first playoff experience in Chicago in 2009.

“It was kind of like this,” he said. “We had all come in together. There were only a few guys that had really been there. It’s just a matter of coming together, being a team. You have to be a team and be willing to sacrifice for the guy sitting next to you.”

Maurice sees that small overall track record as helpful, no matter how you slice it.

“All those guys… and Charlie (Huddy, assistant coach) has enough Cups for everybody. There’s going to come a point in time where your leaders have to settle the group,” he said. “It might be in the first 10 minutes of the first game.

“Those guys have that have been through it before know you don’t go 16-0 in the playoffs, that you have your adversity, that time will come for them. They’ll either do it quietly by their play or it’ll be something said in the room and they’ll have all ears because they’ve been there.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

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