There’s simply too much skill to not favour Jets

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2016 (3205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Since the start of the NHL season, fans and media have been asking whether the Winnipeg Jets are a playoff team — and the answer has been full of qualifiers, which leads to more questions.

With more than a third of the season done, let’s look at some of the highlights and lowlights of the 2016-17 campaign, which might point to where the Jets are headed.

When looking at the best moments so far, what stands out are the great play of the AHL call-ups — players who initially did not crack the roster after training camp and were sent down to the Manitoba Moose. If the Jets had suffered fewer injuries and their initial, veteran-laden squad had played to my expectations, they’d be close to being in the same spot they are in today. It was a huge plus, as those injuries forced the coaching staff to uncover a couple of gems who would otherwise have been buried in the minors.

Forwards Marko Dano and Nic Petan have earned a spot with the big club, no matter who returns from injury, and Andrew Copp is closing the gap.

The highlight-reel package named Patrik Laine is the gift that keeps on giving as he continues to bring his many talents into the NHL game. Merging his passing skills and slick, sometimes unconventional moves with the puck, he’s also learning to use the neutral zone as a weapon to create easy entry into the offensive zone.

You can see opposing defencemen starting to back in and lose their gap on him after he’s dangled one of them, and this will lead to even more excellent shooting angles as he moves forward.

I don’t think you can ask anything more, points-wise, from Mark Scheifele. He’s been putting up numbers at an incredible pace, and to even maintain that would be a huge boost. Nikolaj Ehlers’ excellence in the passing game has him already putting up nice numbers, and if he has a little luck — and his head meshes with his hands — when staring down a goalie, look out.

Blake Wheeler has been excellent, and we can expect more offensive production from him in the coming months, as he’s taken everything head coach Paul Maurice has thrown at him and excelled. As good as Petan was filling in at second-line centre for a time, he’s no Bryan Little or Scheifele, and playing the second-line centre role himself lately is not a spot where Wheeler will be most productive.

My biggest lowlight may change the look of this club more than anything else by the end of the year. It was Little’s injury, and I wrote a while ago about my belief that eager young players with talent could bridge the talent gap for a reasonable number of games.

Well, mission accomplished.

The Jets survived and are in a position most thought they’d be in, hanging around the playoffs. A healthy and fresh Little should still have better legs than the others by the end of the year; having such a huge key to this team’s success rolling late in the year could be critical to making a playoff push.

My second downer involves the penalty-killing unit. With something that requires speed, quickness and some courage, how can the lightning-quick Jets be struggling in this when they possess all three traits?

My third downfall is the power play. The only excuse is injuries (as you’ve heard many times from Maurice), but this club can still throw out two units with veterans who can produce goals.

The Jets directed a lot of shots at the net (with the man advantage where they used five right-handed shooters) Tuesday against Detroit, but I was only initially excited about the ones that got blocked. This might work for a short period of time because of talent, but it’s easy to defend against overall.

Meanwhile, the coaches are trying another unit with four left-hand shots with Laine ready for the one-timer as the legitimate threat. This one has legs long-term, but the Jets don’t necessarily need four left shots, as three would do it.

This, naturally, leads to coaching, and, while it’s not a low point, I’m disappointed for a few reasons, not the least of which is Maurice falling into some of his old habits when injuries ceased to dictate what he could do.

Rumours from out-of-town media had Maurice on the hot seat last weekend, but Jets owner Mark Chipman clearly stated earlier he would be sitting down next summer and analyzing all performances, including Maurice and general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, who will both have one year left on their contracts. That’s the right move — let the season play out to get the hard facts on where the team sits.

The Jets are in the bottom third of the league on the power play, penalty killing and possession numbers. They have had inconsistent goaltending and a coaching staff that makes me wonder, but this is a playoff-calibre team.

The highs outnumber the lows moving forward and, hopefully, smart people can change. There’s just too much talent to bet against this team.

Chosen ninth overall by the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and first overall by the WHA’s Houston Aeros in 1977, Scott Campbell has now been drafted by the Winnipeg Free Press to play a new style of game.

Twitter: @NHL_Campbell