Petan believes he’s capable of doing more

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This article was published 31/03/2017 (3089 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nic Petan enjoys being part of the cast — even though he gets limited screen time — but the 22-year-old centre doesn’t want to be a career extra with the Winnipeg Jets.

He’s gunning for a much bigger role with the NHL club.

The Delta, B.C., native has struggled during the 2016-17 season, scoring just once and adding 12 assists in 52 games while mostly getting into action centering the club’s fourth line with a carousel of wingers and on the power play. He’s also a minus-13, which doesn’t exactly bolster his ambition to get more ice time.

Petan, selected in the second round (43rd overall) of the 2013 draft, said it’s been a tough adjustment to make, considering he’s been a star performer since he was a kid.

“Your mind needs a bit of a break,” Petan said earlier this week.

“But once it comes down to training (in the summer), you want to get back at it right away and work on the things that you were weak at this year. For myself, it’s not solidifying a fourth-line role for myself for the rest of my career. I know I don’t want to be in that role. I think this year you played it and you tried to do your best at it. But I think there’s more opportunity for myself.”

The stark reality for Petan is that he’s as low as fifth on the Jets’ depth chart at the position when everyone’s healthy, and he’s not putting up numbers on the power play, either, despite sharing time with a trigger-man such as rookie Patrik Laine.

He’s behind centres Mark Scheifele, Bryan Little, Adam Lowry and Andrew Copp, although the landscape could change following the June expansion draft. Manitoba Moose centre Jack Roslovic will also battle for a job with the Jets this fall.

Head coach Paul Maurice maintains fourth-line minutes — an average of 11:02 per game — is appropriate for a player with Petan’s experience and production. And he views Petan’s latest body of work as an audition for the 2017-18 season.

“Nic’s in a full-on competition for that job. We’ve had injuries that have probably left him in at times. His numbers aren’t what he’d like them to be,” Maurice said.

“The argument he would make is that he needs to play with certain kind of players to fully develop into and fulfill the player that he might be. At the same time, at centre ice, he has to beat Little or Scheifele out of a job at this time. Lowry does a completely different thing and has got 14 goals.

“We have 10 or 11 players in the Scheifele-or-under age group and not all of them get to play, and they don’t all get to play with Blake Wheeler. We have to make those decisions.”

As a younger player, Petan was always the go-to guy. He was a one-man offensive wrecking crew as a 14-year-old for the North Shore Winter Club bantam team in British Columbia, ripping 76 goals while providing 63 assists in 57 games and leading the club to a fourth-place finish in the Western Canada bantam championships.

He was selected in the first round (16th overall) of the 2013 Western Hockey League bantam draft by the Portland Winter Hawks.

His four-year stint in Portland was nothing short of sensational — his best season was the 2012-13 campaign when he amassed 46 goals and 120 points to share the league scoring title with teammate and Winnipeg native Brendan Leipsic. The Hawks won the WHL title that year, but lost in the Memorial Cup final.

The chunk of time he spent with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose during the 2015-16 season was productive — he netted nine goals and chipped in 23 assists in 47 games. He also scored his first two NHL goals for the Jets in 26 games last year.

Listed at five-foot-nine, 180 pounds, Petan said filling the net has always been his greatest passion, but he’s had to balance that with a push to be more defensively responsible.

“In years past, my defensive mind’s there, but it’s not all there,” he said. “You wanna get points. That’s why you play the game. That’s why I play the game. But this year, definitely a lot more of your mind is playing well defensively.”

Petan didn’t start the season with the big club, but was recalled from the Moose at the start of November when forwards Mathieu Perreault, Joel Armia and Shawn Matthias were felled by injuries. He played 13 games with the Jets and then missed 10 games with a lower-body injury.

Over the last 44 games, he’s been a healthy scratch five times. In his last 24 games, he has one assist, setting up Little’s power-play marker March 16 in a 4-2 victory over the host New York Islanders. That same night, he had a goal disallowed on a coach’s challenge after it was determined the Jets were offside on the rush into the Islanders’ zone.

Petan notched his only goal of the season more than four months ago in a 4-0 home-ice victory over Chicago.

“(It’s) definitely not the season you want to have, team-wise and personally. But you’ve got to get through it, you’ve got to stay positive and (expect) another hard-working summer ahead,” he said.

“You’re put into a role that your not usually aware of, that’s maybe a good word. I think you try and get better in the role they give you, and I thought I’ve gotten better. The offence has not been there this year, but other parts of my game have gotten better and I’m just trying to work on that.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPJasonBell