Maurice isn’t going anywhere

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This article was published 10/04/2017 (3092 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Paul Maurice doesn’t seem like a guy who spends much time wondering what anyone — beyond the folks who sign his paycheque — thinks of him as an NHL head coach.

If he did, he probably wouldn’t sleep at night. He has his detractors in Winnipeg — just like he did in Toronto, Hartford and Carolina.

Maurice has a 136-112-33 record in Winnipeg and the career numbers aren’t scintillating, either.

He has an NHL coaching record of 596-569-200 over 19 seasons. Only legendary bench bosses Al Arbour (577) and Scotty Bowman (573) stood behind the bench for more losses.

Granted, Maurice hasn’t been blessed with guiding Stanley Cup champions like those two fellows. But Arbour and Bowman coached far more games than Maurice, yet he’ll become the head coach with the most career losses next season, maybe as early as Nov. 1.

On paper, the 2017-18 season could be his last in Winnipeg. But on Monday, Maurice didn’t sound worried about where he’ll be earning those dollars beyond the spring of 2018 when his four-year contract is scheduled to run out.

During his year-end news conference Monday, Maurice said he hasn’t sat down with management to discuss a contract extension — and he’s not fretting about it.

“Completely comfortable. I’ve (gone into a final year) four or five times, and it’s always worked out really well. I don’t think about that a whole lot, I never have in my career,” he said. “Every contract I’ve ever done took about 10 minutes.

“I think it’s safe to say I’m going to do whatever (general manager) Kevin (Cheveldayoff) and (team owner) Mark Chipman want me to do with it,” he said. “If they are comfortable going into my last year, I’m fine with that. If they’d like to sign me to an extension, I’m fine with that, too. I’m going to be here every day for the next couple of months. If they need to find me, they know where I am.”

Maurice just completed his third full season behind the Jets bench, after replacing Claude Noel in January 2014. Winnipeg made the playoffs in 2014-15 and got swept four straight by the Anaheim Ducks in the first round. The club failed to qualify in 2015-16 and again this season. Winnipeg (40-35-7) won seven straight to end the year Saturday night, finishing ninth in the Western Conference, seven points behind the Nashville Predators for the second wild-card spot.

Make no mistake, Maurice wants an extension. He maintains he and his family love the city — that it feels an awful lot like Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., where he was raised.

He believes in the organization’s draft-and-development strategy, and he wants to be running the bench if or when it all pans out.

Maurice will get his extension, likely for another three seasons — his reward for doing exactly what his boss asked him to do at the beginning of the season.

He played the kids and, for the most part, got the best out of them. Patrik Laine had a 36-goal campaign and Nickolaj Ehlers scored 25. Defenceman Josh Morrissey had a marvellous inaugural season. The Jets scored 249 goals, tied with Columbus for sixth-most in the NHL.

“My assessment is that in all areas of our game, we’ve got players we believe can improve and develop into really good NHL hockey players. I like a lot of the players we have in positions, some will develop into stars, some of them A players, and I think they’re on track to do that,” he said.

But the team also surrendered the fourth-most goals (256) in the league. That, too, was a result of playing youngsters — most notably goaltender Connor Hellebuyck.

Maurice was asked how much work he’ll do over the summer to either develop a better team-defence strategy or find more effective ways to get the message through to his players.

“How do we develop a defensive game in offensive players? That’s the challenge that you’re faced with with this group,” he said. “We like some of how we score goals. We have to improve and change offensively in terms of our thoughts on how often we generate our offence (because) it leads to a challenge for us defensively…

“We’re not going to turn (Laine) into a checker, that’s not coming. But he’s got to get to a certain level, and that’s true of all our players, to play well defensively and still be able to use the talents and feel comfortable and confident that the coaching staff wants you to use your talents and your skills. That’s the challenge.”

His assessment of the club’s goaltending?

“Our goaltending has to get better, incrementally, just like every other piece of our game,” said Maurice. “(Hellebuyck) is going to learn how to fight now, learn how to compete a little harder… learning how to grind through that, the mental grind. To get to be great they have their tough nights, they get pulled. They have to fight for their confidence on their own. He had to do all of that this year.

“(We) saw progress in his game. He’s got lot of room to keep getting better, which is true of all of these kids. I believe in him, I believe in his talent level and his compete level that he’s going to continue to get better.”

The Jets lost 355 man-games to injury, second only to the Vancouver Canucks. Blue-liner Tyler Myers missed 66 games, centre Bryan Little missed 23, right-winger Joel Armia was out 24, while left-winger Mathieu Perreault was hurt twice for a total of 17 games. Laine missed eight.

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“In 25 of our games we had six to eight players (out). We had too many important, at times, long stretches of time (with) keys guys out to go on any type of a run. I think the November hockey that we played, while it was .500, based on what we were dealing with was quite impressive.

“You’re going to have a difficult time running big, big numbers like we did and going on runs. You get into that 350, 360 range you’re going to feel it, and we did.”

Maurice said fans should not expect many new faces on the roster come October, but he’s banking on the team being better.

“It’s gonna look an awful lot this team but five months older. We’ll be a good team. Can we be a great team? It all depends on how far we push them, how far we can get them in the course of a year.”

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