Jets’ sophomore centre savours chance to take on bigger role
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$0 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*No charge for 4 weeks then price increases to the regular rate of $19.00 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.75/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/09/2015 (3694 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
YOU’RE not imagining things if you see Adam Lowry moving quickly to the head of the class.
The Winnipeg Jets are all-in on draft and develop and their general manager never fails to mention the word “patience.”
Yet here are the Jets, clearly signalling before Lowry’s second NHL season even starts he’s a candidate for plenty more responsibility.
To start this year’s training camp, head coach Paul Maurice dropped an unexpected early surprise — the 22-year-old centre would be involved in an experimental promotion to the first line with Andrew Ladd and Bryan Little, sending Little at least temporarily over to the right wing.
Lowry’s production last season, his first in the NHL, was modest at 11 goals and 23 points. He began it as a winger — the coach didn’t push too hard, too early — but quickly became the regular third-line centre and played higher when late injuries hit.
Lowry proved versatile in many instances, including during a March injury to Little, and played 80 games, was suspended for one and injured for the other he didn’t play.
As has been true with fellow youngsters Mark Scheifele and Jacob Trouba, Lowry shows there is a third word for the Jets that goes with “draft” and “develop.”
It’s “trust,” as in faith from the head coach.
“You never know you’re ready until you’re put in that position,” Lowry said, asked about shouldering more and more responsibility, as Maurice has clearly indicated. “Last year coming in, it was all new experiences, playing my first NHL game and playing against the best players in the world that I had never played against before.
“Then Bryan got hurt and it slotted Mark and myself up a rung and I slid in between Ladd and (Michael) Frolik and there were some nights I struggled and it wasn’t necessarily the best matchups.”
Lowry refused to wilt in the wake of those disappointments. He didn’t stop making mistakes, he just made fewer of them.
“Paul gave me the opportunity to try to match against (Ryan) Kesler’s line at home here in the playoffs,” Lowry said. “That’s another almost step forward. You feel more confident every day, when you get to go out there and start accomplishing things that at the start of the season you didn’t think you’d be able to.
“I look at, it the experiment or the line change (at this camp), as a good opportunity. If it doesn’t work out, there’s still going to be a spot where I can contribute on this team.”
Lowry might not get the chance right away with Little and Ladd. Both have missed camp time with minor ailments and Maurice has expressed a wish to also tinker with Alex Burmistrov with that duo. Wednesday, Lowry played his first pre-season contest with other teammates, recording a goal in the 3-2 defeat in Edmonton.
Maurice suggested earlier this week he’s not going to let his curiosity die. He left little doubt he thinks the big centre is ready to take on more responsibility within this team, even if he doesn’t get to try it out soon via line jockeying.
“The question is, ‘Will you leave him in that (role)?’ ” Maurice said about a possible line promotion. “So we wanted to take a look at Little, Ladd, Lowry but it’s something we may not be able to take a look at now with the injuries we have because in the second phase, I wanted to take a look at Burmistrov on that wing and (Little) back in the middle… next week.
“Last year (with Lowry) we just kind of watched and waited. When we put him back into the middle, it was good and we left it and it stayed good and it got better.
“Had he struggled back in the middle, he’d have gone back out to the wing for another month and then we’d have waited for him and he’d have come back in.”
This was the coach’s roundabout way of saying the trust wasn’t something he just discovered in the off-season.
“We had decided early with him, based on what we had seen, that he deserved to be in our lineup, that our team couldn’t get better with the personnel we had with him playing in the minors or a fourth-line role,” Maurice said.
“Then he earned it.”
tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca
