Paul Maurice wants more

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2016 (3564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. LOUIS — It was just more than two hours to puck drop and Paul Maurice was holding court with a small throng of media. Actually, “holding court” isn’t the right term. He was answering questions through gritted teeth.

The veteran National Hockey League coach, normally an insightful sort, looked like he could think of 1,000 other places he’d rather be.

If you leaned in close enough — at your own peril, of course — traces of smoke might have been still escaping his ears, as a result of the night before, when his Winnipeg Jets were absolutely atrocious in the first 10 minutes of Friday’s 5-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. The veins in his neck and forehead were still bulging and he had a death-stare going that could have dropped Darth Vader to his knees.

Fast forward five hours and Maurice was again gazing into the lights of the television cameras. He beamed about his team’s work in a 4-2 victory over the Colorado Avalanche and left the distinct impression, if prompted, he would have taken a few minutes to publicly pat every player in Jets colours on the back.

Talk about extreme mood swings.

“That’s the way it’s got to look for us,” said Maurice of the win over the Avs. “We’ve got to play harder than average to win hockey games. We just do. That’s where we’re at. We’ve got a real young team and (Saturday) they took a step forward. I was really happy with how the whole group played. That’s exactly the way it’s got to look.

“And just so I’m clear: it’s really, really hard to do every night and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

That’s the confounding thing about these 2015-16 Jets. One night they stumble out of the gate and embarrass themselves in front of their faithful and just more than 24 hours later they look like the team so many (yours truly included), figured they could morph into after last spring’s sprint to the playoffs.

If all this makes this bunch frustrating to watch, just imagine what it’s like standing behind their bench every night. Look, Maurice doesn’t escape blame for where the Jets find themselves today — staring up at a pile of teams in the overall NHL standings — but he’s also pushed just about every button a coach can to squeeze the most out of his team. He’s made line juggling a daily task, has turned the No. 1 netminding chores over to a rookie, bumped his captain from the first line to the third, switched defence partners and flipped wingers and D-men to their opposite sides. They’ve tinkered with the penalty kill and power play. He’s brought out the blade when it was warranted and administered the balm when his crew needed it.

All to limited results.

As the great orator Foghorn Leghorn would shout: “he’s chopping, but no chips are flying.”

Having said all that, the one card Maurice hasn’t played is the banishment to the press box thing.

It came up before Saturday’s win when Maurice was asked about balancing the desire for continuity with his lineup against having two options in defencemen in Paul Postma and Adam Pardy piling up frequent flyer points but never getting their jerseys sweaty.

Maurice’s answer was telling.

“I think it’s safe to say that there’s a certain level of hockey that we’ve got to get out of these defencemen,” he said. “Quite frankly, we didn’t see it when we put the other two guys in. So, it’s not rec hockey. You don’t pay your 185 bucks and everybody gets fair ice time. When you get your chance to do something, you need to do something.”

That answer did two things. First, it got the anti-Mark Stuart crowd fired up — the veteran D-man’s Corsi ranks ahead of only Alex Burmistrov — and it also revealed how little faith the coach has in turning to Pardy and Postma. Oh, and the extra forward the Jets have in tow is Anthony Peluso, whose best skills are showcased when his gloves are on the ice, not wrapped around his stick.

Again, this isn’t to absolve Maurice of any of the blame. It’s his job to poke and prod, push, pull and drag this team to a spot where its effort looks more like Saturday in Denver, than Friday in Winnipeg. And no, as he stated, it’s not easy to do every night.

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But his depth chart isn’t exactly overflowing with talent here, either. And the prospects down on the farm — outside of maybe Eric Comrie, Chase DeLeo and J.C. Lipon — are taking a long time to ripen. That’s on GM Kevin Cheveldayoff, who has more irons in the fire than a blacksmith these days.

So which Jets team shows up Tuesday in St. Louis? Your guess is as good as Maurice’s.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait