Get out of neutral, kick into overdrive

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This article was published 26/11/2016 (3231 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NASHVILLE — His team had just lost its fifth consecutive game and his line had been benched for all but one shift in the third period Friday night.

Jets captain Blake Wheeler took a breath and calmly took questions from reporters about an ugly topic — Winnipeg’s 5-1 loss to the Nashville Predators. This has become Wheeler’s team and he has been unflinching as its representative, win or lose.

How could his Jets rebound in time for today’s rematch at home with the Predators?

“The good news is there’s a lot of spirit in the room,” said Wheeler. “We have great locker room, a really close locker room. And you’ve seen no quit in us so far this year.

“We’ve come back from some tough situations, some tough deficits within games. I’m optimistic that our group can rebound here. It’s just that sometimes when things start snowballing, sometimes it’s tough to reverse course and I think we just have our game in neutral right now. We gotta kick it into overdrive.”

When Jets head coach Paul Maurice sat down his top line of Wheeler, Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine, he was unhappy with Scheifele’s undisciplined slashing penalty but the benching was clearly more of a general wake-up call.

“That’s why he’s the captain,” said Maurice of Wheeler taking responsibility for the loss. “I don’t put anything on him at all. He plays the same way every night, competes hard and when he was on the bench, (he was) cheering for his teammates.

“So he handles everything perfectly. He always feels when the team’s not winning, as leaders do, they need to do more. I don’t think he can do more. We need to do more as a group but the idea that if we just play our game we win that one — that’s not right either. We’ve got some work to do.”

A young defence pairing of 21-year-old Josh Morrissey and 22-year-old Jacob Trouba, hastily thrown together after the departure of veteran blue-liner Toby Enstrom to Sweden to attend to a family matter, performed well.

“We’re making some little mistakes and they’re costing us and we’re not getting the bounces,” said Morrissey. “In a situation like this, we’ve gotta battle. We aren’t going to win a game with pretty plays or fancy style of game. We’ve gotta grind. We’ve gotta play that ugly game. That’s how you get out of these things.”

In recent weeks, Winnipeg players have frequently referenced the need to “simplify” their games. The mantra is taking longer to take hold.

“We don’t play a real simple offensive game,” said Maurice. “We’re trying to make one more play to make it easier for us. The offensive part of our game — we’re not producing, we’re not scoring, but that’s not where our fault is. We’re giving up too much to get nothing.”

The Predators are 8-2-2 in November and should be a very difficult test for the Jets. Game time is noon.

“We’re going to have to play fairly close to perfect mentally,” said Maurice. “The first goal we give up (Friday) we’ve got two guys looking behind the net. We don’t have that margin for error right now.

“It’s a great time for our team to really hang on to the basics, the foundation of the game and work toward that, especially when it’s difficult. Just simple, fast hockey without trying to do more, trying to find a different way. It’s a great learning experience for them.”

Note: The Jets recalled defenceman Julian Melchiori from Manitoba Moose of the AHL late Saturday to fill in for Enstrom while he is in Sweden.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14