Time to rest and refuel

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This article was published 14/12/2016 (3264 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A two-day break from the rigours of the NHL season was a welcome respite for the Winnipeg Jets and sophomore left-winger Nikolaj Ehlers.

The 20-year-old Dane’s normal instinct is to rush back onto the ice, but the 2016-17 regular season has been gruelling like none other before it.

“Sometimes you gotta listen to your body, too,” said Ehlers following practice at the MTS Centre Wednesday. “We’ve played 32 games in 60 days. It was good to have a few days off. I went to Thermea (spa), just to kinda relax… the hot, cold thing. Just getting hockey out of your head for a few days is healthy, too, when you play that many games. We had time to get our energy back.”

Jets captain Blake Wheeler spoke from a more veteran perspective when he described how his body has responded to the recent workload.

“Sometimes you’d dig into the bank and there’s nothing left in there,” said Wheeler, whose club has lost four consecutive games and hosts the Florida Panthers tonight (TSN3, TSN 1290). “That’s kind of a bad feeling. You normally have that reserve to tap into and to have that gone on a given night, that makes it tough… There’s obviously an element of mental fatigue that goes with the travel and everything but the physical burden can sometimes be more challenging.”

A compressed schedule, made necessary by the World Cup of Hockey and a mandated five-day mid-season break for all teams, has had a serious impact on the normal routines of players and coaches.

Even game-day skates, a long-standing tradition in pro hockey, are no longer considered absolutely necessary.

“The first time when I had to get fully dressed in the morning, it didn’t make sense to me,” said Jets right-winger Drew Stafford, who’s in his 11th season in the NHL. “For the first part of my career it was a big deal. It was, ‘OK, we gotta get ready. You go to the morning skate, that means you’re going to have a great game. If you have a tough morning skate, you better make sure (you’re ready).’ Now, the way the schedules have been the last couple of years, the speed of the game. It’s getting faster and faster, you have to save your legs, you have to take care of your hips and your groins.”

Stafford played at the University of North Dakota where game-day skates were casual, sweatpants and sticks sort of occasions. He understands how a young player might feel the need to push himself, even if a practice or skate is considered optional.

“There is that stigma of the young guy that needs to get out there, no matter what,” said Stafford. “It’s optional, but it’s not an option kind of thing. These days, that doesn’t really fly anymore… Let’s just say I wouldn’t complain if they took away the morning skate.”

Ehlers, for his part, likes the structure it brings.

“Honestly, if I wouldn’t have to go to the rink (early) I’d be sleeping till (noon). I wouldn’t like it,” said Ehlers. “I think coming to the rink in the morning, going on the ice for 15 to 20 minutes that’s it… It’s good to go on the ice and feel myself out.

“I would still ask to go on the ice if we didn’t have to.”

Jets coach Paul Maurice has a progressive approach to these workouts.

“Ours are short — we’re at a 12-minute structure for the game-day skates,” said Maurice. “We got into a rhythm that, because of the number of games, you’d like to take the morning skate off after you’ve had a bit of a practice. But the injuries out of your lineup hurt you. It’s the guys that are playing that are banged up that cause you not to be able to skate.

“I’d like to get away from morning skates if it fits our group. I don’t know if anybody’s got a secret of not skating on game days and winning a lot of hockey games because of it.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14