Scheifele quietly, solidly at centre of things

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This article was published 04/01/2017 (3263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He signed the richest contract in the history of Winnipeg sports in the summer, took over the top-line centre position when training camp opened and had a shiny new ‘A’ sewed on his jersey for good measure.

Yet here we are, now exactly halfway through what sure looked like it was going to be the Season of Mark Scheifele, and almost all the attention to this point — inside and outside Winnipeg — has been focused instead on the 18-year-old NHL rookie who plays on Scheifele’s wing, Patrik Laine.

And why not?

With goals in back-to-back games this week — Tuesday in a 6-4 Winnipeg Jets win in Tampa and again Wednesday night in a 4-1 Jets win in Sunrise over the Florida Panthers — Laine now has 21 this season, leading all rookies and second overall in the NHL only to some guy named Sidney Crosby.

The kid has been money: with this week’s wins in Florida, the Jets are 12-2-1 when Laine scores and 7-17-2 when he doesn’t.

Those numbers speak volumes about just which straw stirs the Jets drink — and it’s not the guy who signed the massive contract in the summer and was handed the keys to the offence as the team’s new No. 1 centre.

All of which will forever make Scheifele the answer to the question: name the first NHL player to fly under the radar in the same year he signed an eight-year, US$49-million contract.

It is both Scheifele’s curse — but also mostly his blessing — he is authoring what looks like it will be the most productive season of his five-year NHL career at the same time Laine is writing his script with one of the most memorable rookie campaigns in history.

There are just a handful of teams in the NHL for which a top-line centre such as Scheifele, having the kind of season he is having (17 goals, 19 assists) would not be the face of his team and the guy everyone looked to nightly to hoist the team on his back.

But that’s how it goes when you’re playing on the same team as a generational talent such as Laine, who is a magnet for both the largest media scrums in the Jets dressing room and the puck at every available opportunity on the ice.

Some of this is symbiotic — Scheifele is having the kind of production he is this season because Laine has been so effective, just as Laine has been getting open looks all season long as the beneficiary of Scheifele’s effective work at centre on a line that also includes Nikolaj Ehlers.

It took some time to develop — and a few trips through head coach Paul Maurice’s line blender — but that line combination now has more chemistry than a Grade 12 science textbook and is, by a mile, the best thing the Jets put on the ice, night after night.

And at the centre of it all — literally and figuratively — has been Scheifele.

Consider Tuesday in Tampa, when the threesome of Laine, Scheifele and Ehlers combined for eight points. It was more of the same Wednesday against the Panthers, with Laine, Ehlers and Scheifele each scoring to account for three of the Jets’ four goals.

While the kids are the sizzle (Ehlers has been a human highlight reel lately), it’s been Scheifele who has been the beef, quietly going about the business of being responsible at both ends of the ice and giving the youngsters room — and the puck — to show their stuff.

It’s a testament to just how crazy young this team is that it’s Scheifele, still trying to grow a viable beard at age 23, who serves as the veteran presence on a line where one winger just became eligible to vote and the other still cannot legally buy a drink in Mississippi.

It’s been a battle, too.

A hot start to the season — which included a national coming out, of sorts, as a member of Team North America at the World Cup — fizzled a bit through November as Scheifele battled through a hamstring injury that officially cost him three games, but dogged him a lot longer than that.

But he’s all better now, putting up 10 points in 12 games since returning from injury and quietly building his workmanlike case as an elite NHL centre.

It hasn’t been glamorous. Life in the trenches seldom is. And the youngsters at his sides have monopolized what glamour there has been.

Scheifele’s not an explosive centre such as Sidney Crosby, who can turn a game his way just with his presence on the ice. He’s also not a centre such as Jonathan Toews, who can turn a game his way with nothing more than sheer force of will.

Scheifele isn’t that kind of player and he isn’t that kind of man.

But one season into an eight-year contract and still just a kid himself, Scheifele is beginning to look exactly like what the Jets’ front office always hoped he would become: a guy who can bring out the best in all the rich talent that surrounds him.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca          

Twitter: @PaulWiecek