Petan’s play drawing attention

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This article was published 02/04/2016 (3476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In his second opportunity with the Winnipeg Jets, rookie Nic Petan has less of a leash, and he’s not holding back.

The Jets are about evaluation and not playoffs at this stage, and the 21-year-old forward is doing his best to get noticed.

Now with 22 games under his belt, including 14 from when he made the NHL team out of training camp, Petan has allowed himself to start thinking he belongs.

“I think you want to think like that,” he said after Saturday’s practice at the MTS Centre. “That’s my thought process. I feel like it. I know it’s a hard matter that we’re not going to the playoffs, but you’re thinking about getting ready for next year. Training camp all over again, work hard all over again and try to make the squad again next year.”

Petan’s been good at the training-camp thing since being drafted by the Jets in the second round of 2013.

In 2014 he went back to junior, but only after being one of the final cuts. Last fall, he made the grade to start.

“I’ll focus on doing that again,” he said. “Summer’s a big part of it, work ethic is a big part of it for another training camp, to come in and impress.”

On Friday, playing on a line with two other youngsters, Andrew Copp and Joel Armia, Petan knocked in his second goal of the season from the edge of the crease.

It survived a video review for an early Jets lead.

“It’s nice to see it go in,” he said. “Over the last seven games here, I’ve just been whacking away, and it hasn’t been going in. So it’s nice to finally get one.

“I thought it was originally (good) and I got to the bench and was like, in my head, ‘What now?’ But it’s good that it went in.”

He was a player in a video review a week ago that showed a Winnipeg goal belonged to Copp.

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Jets coach Paul Maurice tipped his hand on the Bryan Little situation.

The team’s No. 1 centre has recovered swiftly from a wicked blow Feb. 18 that caused a compression fracture in his vertebrae. Little has practised for the last four days and believes he might be ready to play before the season ends Saturday.

“He’s not going in yet,” Maurice said Saturday. “I’m really on the other side of this argument. I don’t see the need, so the convincing would have to be very strong and persuasive.”

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The Jets coach also said newly signed forward Brandon Tanev, a free agent acquisition out of Providence College, isn’t likely to get in for Sunday’s final home game of the season against the Minnesota Wild.

“He’s going in, in my mind, in Anaheim,” Maurice said, pointing to Tuesday’s game.

“We’ll get him a couple of more practices. The last home game will be played mostly by the guys who have been here, and he’ll start in Anaheim.”

Tanev, 24, would be the eighth player playing his first NHL game this season for the Jets, if he goes in. The team has also used two other players this season who had previously played just one NHL game, Andrew Copp and Joel Armia.

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Another young draft pick is about to get a taste of pro hockey with the Winnipeg Jets organization.

Forward Jansen Harkins, Winnipeg’s second-round pick in 2015, has been signed to an amateur tryout agreement and will join the AHL’s Manitoba Moose.

Harkins is just 18, and his WHL season with the Prince George Cougars is complete. He scored 24 goals and 57 points in 69 games and had two goals and four points in four playoff games.

The Moose begin a four-game homestand Tuesday night.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca