Maurice cranked up the volume, but did the Jets hear him?

Opinion

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This article was published 12/01/2017 (3186 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

"I didn't like the way we were playing. I didn't like the way we played the whole entire night."

Paul Maurice on the 7-4 loss to MTL. pic.twitter.com/3JZh7VdrxQ

— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) January 12, 2017

It is probably not entirely a coincidence Paul Maurice finally lost his patience with the Winnipeg Jets on the third-year anniversary of the night the Jets finally lost their patience with Claude Noel.

Timing is everything, in sports as in life. And January in Winnipeg? If you’re not at the end of your rope, you’re not paying attention.

Until Maurice blew his gasket in the most public way imaginable during — and again after — a humiliating 7-4 loss to the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday night at the MTS Centre, January 11 was the date reserved in Jets history for the night in 2014 that Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff convinced team owner Mark Chipman that Noel — the only head coach Jets 2.0 had ever had — needed to go.

By the next morning, Noel had been fired and Cheveldayoff was meeting with the media to announce Maurice was taking over.

Ahhh, the memories.

And so there was a certain symmetry in watching Maurice call a timeout in the second period, gather his players around him and then launch a verbal assault upon his $66-million payroll that would have had a Hells Angel blushing.

You knew this one was going to be extra special when Maurice removed his eyeglasses in advance, lest they go flying into the third row. The ensuing tirade was one for the ages, judging by the twisted contortions of Maurice’s face and the vein on his forehead that was dangerously bulging, all of it captured for posterity in HD on a national television broadcast.

Think we all might see that highlight again?

Things didn’t get any better for the Jets from there — has a tantrum ever improved anything? — and what was a 5-2 game when an apoplectic Maurice called that timeout had gone in the books as a humbling, and utterly bewildering, 7-4 thrashing.

Asked about his meltdown in his post-game news conference, Maurice had technicians once again reaching for the bleep button as he employed language that is used every day in every way in every place, with the exception of the puritan media where we all still pretend to clutch our pearls at the first hint someone might be actually speaking the way real, agitated people speak.

Like I said, it’s January. In Winnipeg. In the depths of a particularly bad winter that has seen the temperatures as low as the snowbanks are high. If you haven’t been cursing the past couple weeks, your medication is better than mine.

So what does any of this have in common with Noel being fired, other than the date?

Nothing. And everything.

Nothing, because the situations are completely different, at least for the moment.

Noel was fired because the players were no longer listening to him no matter how loud he yelled. He was the head coach of a bad team that wasn’t getting any better. Something had to change, so it was him.

Maurice, on the contrary, is in no danger of going anywhere right now. Remember all those rumours prior to Christmas about how he was in danger of being fired? They were baseless then and Maurice isn’t any closer to the exit right now, public tantrums notwithstanding.

Indeed, the most interesting thing to me about Maurice’s meltdown was that he wasn’t yelling because his team was playing badly; rather, he was yelling because his team had been playing well lately and had — for no discernible reason — decided to take Wednesday night off.

A Jets team that had won three out of its last four and was the second hottest team in the league in 2017 coming into the game simply never bothered to show up — and it drove Maurice crazy, almost literally.

And who can blame the man? How does a team that played, for my money, one of its strongest all-around games of the season Monday night — a 2-0 win over the Calgary Flames — put forth an effort just two nights later that would have embarrassed their co-tenant in the MTS Centre, the AHL’s Manitoba Moose?

The same way a Jets team that posted gritty wins on back-to-back nights in Florida last week promptly soiled themselves in Buffalo on the weekend, gassing a 3-1 third-period lead to lose both the game and rookie phenom Patrik Laine to a concussion.

My theory? Kids, man. They fill your heart with pride one day and break it the next. It’s what they do, over and over again, until the day finally comes when they don’t. Or you kick them out, whichever comes first.

Maurice finally lost patience with that nonsense on Wednesday. It wasn’t a good look on him, but there’s no Jets fan in existence who didn’t understand his frustration.

Here’s the thing, though. By going so public with his displeasure and essentially calling out his team in front of the entire country, Maurice raised the stakes for both his team and himself heading into a three-game road trip that begins Friday in Glendale, Arizona, and continues on to L.A. on Saturday and San Jose on Monday.

Yelling is one thing. But the question now — and Maurice posed it the most public way imaginable — is whether his team is listening. And everyone is going to be waiting for that answer heading into Friday night and a very winnable game against a terrible opponent in the Arizona Coyotes.

Noel got fired three years ago because his team stopped listening to him. On Wednesday, Maurice felt the need to turn up the volume.

Can they hear him now? History suggests he’d better hope so.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek