For the Jets, rest trumps everything right now

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/02/2019 (2392 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As a young lad playing minor hockey in Winnipeg, I recall a coach whose bag of tricks to shake us out of a slumber contained exactly one item: The dreaded bag skate.

It was his answer to everything. Looking back, the number of times we practised without pucks and did lap after endless lap probably speaks to the effectiveness of his approach.

I was thinking about that coach the other day after watching the Winnipeg Jets sleepwalk through another game, this time a 4-3 overtime loss Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators. It was the second time in eight days the local club fell to the NHL’s worst team. And the latest performance was worse than the first.

No doubt my old bench boss would have had the solution. And the Jets would be in for a long day at the rink if he was running the show.

Which is why I’m guessing he wouldn’t be a fan of the approach being taken these days by Paul Maurice toward his troops, who are 2-3-2 in the past seven games.

Rather than bag skate his team, Maurice is trying something rather unique. He’s not skating them at all.

Not the day before the Ottawa game, when a full team practice ended up being optional, with only a handful of players lacing up the blades. Not on Sunday, the day after the dreadful defeat, which the Jets had previously scheduled off under terms of the collective bargaining agreement. And not Monday either, when the Jets actually cancelled their on-ice workout at Bell MTS Iceplex in favour of a second straight day away from the rink.

All of which begs the question: If practice makes perfect, what does not practicing do? I guess we’re about to find out.

There’s no question the Jets look slow lately, which Maurice pointed out, following Saturday’s loss, in his most candid comments of the season. Perhaps the logic is that rest trumps everything else right now, especially with the team hoping to make a long playoff push in the spring.

“We are concerned. There’s not a lot going for us. We’re struggling in all pieces of it. It’s how we generate our offence, how we defend, our special teams,” Maurice said post-game.

“Let’s just put this in a package here. I don’t love our game right now. We’re at a point in our season, that every team has, where you’re struggling to do some pretty basic things at times, right. Your overall speed will come off of that. How we move the puck, the physicality. There isn’t anything right now. You just see the way the legs are moving, normally very quick people aren’t (quick). So, we’ll get some rest here over the next three days here and then we’ll get back to work.”

Winnipeg just completed a stretch of 11 games in 20 days coming off their eight-day bye week and all-star break. They went 5-4-2, which included two road trips out east and two homestands. A tough grind, sure. But the kind of schedule every NHL team has to deal with.

Has the fuel tank gone empty that quickly? The Jets are set to practice Tuesday morning before they jump on a charter and head west to kick off a three-game road trip Wednesday night in Denver.

We’ll see if all this additional R & R starts leading to some W’s.

***

With the Jets taking an extended hiatus this weekend, there was at least some off-ice drama to keep an eye on.

Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion, assistant GM Peter MacTavish and director of pro scouting Jim Clark attended Sunday afternoon’s Manitoba Moose game at Bell MTS Place, adding more fuel to the ongoing trade rumours between the Senators and Jets.

It was the fourth straight day the Ottawa braintrust has been at the downtown rink. They also took in Thursday’s Jets game against Colorado, Friday’s Moose game against Chicago and Saturday’s game involving their NHL club, of course.

It’s also worth noting that Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and chairman/co-owner Mark Chipman were on hand Sunday.

I spotted Dorion and Cheveldayoff meeting behind closed doors in Cheveldayoff’s suite during the second intermission. Dorion then left and was on the phone for several minutes before returning to his press box seat, while Cheveldayoff and Chipman sat down together in the GM’s office.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall.

It’s no secret Ottawa is considering moving Mark Stone, Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel by next Monday’s trade deadline, as all three are pending unrestricted free agents. The Jets have been linked in talks to Stone, a Winnipeg product, and Duchene, a centre, as they try to bolster their club down the stretch. (All three players scored Saturday night against the Jets, just as they all did a week earlier in Ottawa).

Dorion and MacTavish had left town by Monday, but Clark was once again on press row for Monday afternoon’s Moose game. Sure, it may ultimately not lead to anything. But having this kind of prolonged presence is unusual, and tells you something is potentially cooking.

Usually when there’s smoke, there’s fire.

***

He’s been painfully quiet on the ice lately, with no goals in his past 14 games and just one in his past 21. And he’s been awfully quiet off it as well.

Patrik Laine hasn’t spoken to the media in two weeks. And it’s not because the normally outgoing 20-year-old doesn’t want to hold court. Rather, the team’s PR staff has opted to give him a break from us big, bad scribes, apparently hoping some time out of the media spotlight might help get him back on track.

It hasn’t exactly worked, although Laine has shown flashes in recent games of perhaps breaking out of his extended slump.

The Finnish sniper, who’s been stuck on 25 goals now for more than a month, is notoriously hard on himself. Not to mention candid and blunt. We can only imagine what he’d say right now about current events.

You can tell fans are just waiting to explode when he finally does light the lamp. During the past three games at home, crowds at Bell MTS Place were cheering his every move — a good back-check, a nice pass, a shot on net and even when he hopped over the boards in the third period last Thursday to take his place back on the top power play unit after being demoted earlier in the month.

Perhaps Laine’s stick will have something to say soon.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg