Speed, talent, size… but mojo?

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This article was published 13/11/2015 (3642 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NASHVILLE — The Winnipeg Jets are not as good as they thought they were. And they’re not as bad as you fear they might be.

Somewhere in between those two extremes — the wide gulf between a high-flying Jets team that went 7-3-1 in October and had the whole league taking notice and the 1-4-1 Jets team this month that has the whole league scratching its head — is where this 2015-16 team actually is at the moment.

And that, really, is what this current four-game road trip through the Central Division was always about — revealing who this enigmatic Jets team really is at the moment.

Head coach Paul Maurice said as much in Winnipeg way back on Monday. “It will define where we’re at right now,” said Maurice. “But not where we’ll be two or three months from now.”

So where is this Jets team right now? Well, they’re mired in a nasty four-game losing streak, that’s where, and they have picked up just three points in their last six games.

That’s bad. And what’s worse is the Jets’ play in a Central Division is by universal acclamation the toughest division in all of hockey. The margin for error in the Central is razor-thin and the danger for the Jets is even though there are still 65 games left in the regular season, the hole they are currently digging for themselves is getting deeper by the day and could leave this team playing catchup the rest of the season unless they can put this thing right — and quickly.

Jets centre Bryan Little, always an honest voice in the Winnipeg dressing room, said as much after practice Friday. “It’s early in the season still, but the way the West and our division is so tight, we need to start playing with some more urgency and realize how big these games are.”

That’s a revealing comment from Little. Implicit in his words is there has been to this point a lack of both a sense of urgency and the importance of this moment to the rest of the Jets season.

And if that’s true, well, it explains a lot, doesn’t it — the four breakaways in the last two games; the dumb penalties; the pedestrian power play; the ridiculously slow starts in a season in which Winnipeg has given up the first goal in 13 of 17 games.

The Dallas Stars certainly knew how big that game was the other night. Did you see Jamie Benn jumping for the rafters after he scored the game-winner? Benn is a guy who leads the NHL in scoring this season, but you just had to watch that celebration to know this wasn’t just another goal to Benn or the Stars.

And the Jets? Not so much. It’s all enough to make you wonder if this Jets team just got a little fat and sassy after cruising through the first month of the season. They made it look easy — and so, perhaps, they started believing it actually is easy.

And if you start thinking that way, well the first thing to go is the stuff that is hard — such as playing the rigidly disciplined defensive style Maurice favours and has been the single source of whatever success this team has had the past couple seasons.

The good news is that with the exception of a disastrous second period in Minnesota on Tuesday, the Jets don’t appear to be far removed from that better version of themselves. Yeah, they’ve lost five of six games but two of those losses came on the road to two of the best teams in the league in Dallas and Montreal. Even a Jets team performing on all cylinders might have lost those games.

And then there was the epic stand-on-his-head shutout performance by Philadelphia Flyers goalie Michal Neuvirth last Saturday at the MTS Centre which gave the Jets another loss. Toss in two other road losses — in Ottawa and then that stinker in Minnesota — and there’s your five losses in six games.

It’s not good, but it happens. And all that matters now is how the Jets respond.

There are two games left to salvage something out of this Central Division road trip and if adversity only makes you stronger, well, every player on the team could look like Dustin Byfuglien by the time they fly home from St. Louis Monday night.

The bottom line is this: we know this Jets team has size. We know this team has speed. We know this team has talent.

The question still to be answered is this: Does this team also have heart?

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiece