Coach wants offence, captain wants defence

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This article was published 16/10/2016 (3261 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The theme for the Winnipeg Jets practice Sunday was simple.

Despite scoring eight times in their first two games, head coach Paul Maurice isn’t satisfied with where his team sits offensively through the first 120 minutes of the season.

During Sunday morning’s skate, he worked his team in such a way to try and strike a balance. Picking up pucks off the wall, finding motion in the offensive zone and, he said, if they aren’t getting pucks to the net, maintaining possession as long as possible so when the other team does gain control, they’re changing lines instead of mounting a counter-offensive.

“It’s not just a function of creating more offence, it’s where you’re playing the game,” Maurice said. “The flow of the game is won by zone time. If you’re in your end for 25, 30 seconds, it’s a dump-and-change situation and now you’re losing that battle. We haven’t spent enough time in the offensive zone.

“I won’t say it’s a concern. I know that when (a team) gets younger you will hold onto the puck less. Just on physical strength, you spend less time with the puck, so we got to get some quickness into our offensive-zone time. We want to create a little more chaos in their end than what we’ve seen.”

Creating more offence also comes with a caveat.

“That’s a dangerous thing,” Maurice said. “When you talk about creating more offence, you end up digging it out of your net a whole lot more. It has to be generated a certain way.”

Jets forward Blake Wheeler didn’t want to focus too much on the offensive side of the game Sunday.

The captain wasn’t trying to deflect the question and knows his team needs to put the puck on net a little more. But the team’s defensive game — allowing eight goals in two games — is what most concerns him.

“Keeping the puck out of our net is a priority,” Wheeler said. “We’ve played two games and scored eight goals and given up eight goals. We’re working on things, as everyone is. There’s no perfect team out there. When we do get the puck in the offensive zone, it’s just being a little quicker with it, more deliberate with what we’re trying to do and hopefully that creates a little more sustained pressure.”

Where does Maurice see his team defensively thus far?

“A work in progress,” he said.

Meanwhile, a teaching moment from the captain was caught on camera at the end of the first period Saturday.

As the team was filing off the bench into the tunnel at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., Wheeler had one arm around forward Nikolaj Ehlers, talking to him about something he saw.

“I’ve said it many times before, he’s a great leader,” Ehlers said. “He took me under his wing last year and helped me a lot. I appreciate that. It’s not just, ‘Oh man, what is he saying now.’ I listen to him because he can play.”

Captain or not, Wheeler understands his role as a veteran playing amongst a stable of younger guns.

“I think it’s important to try and stay on top of some things with guys and try to point them in the right direction,” Wheeler said. “With so much ability and so much talent that some of our guys have, you want to try and help them maximize that as soon as possible. Anything you can do to get them playing at their best is going to be beneficial, not only for them, but for the team.”

Maurice called Wheeler’s approach to his young players “fatherly.”

“He’s able to do it from such a strong foundation of work ethic and compete,” Maurice said. “We need that from him. Nobody is assigned a player (to mentor), but they’ll gravitate to certain guys.”

It’s all a part of keeping the youngsters level-headed in the NHL world.

“It’s that balance we talk about every day in the coaching staff,” Maurice said.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @scottbilleck