Put down the pitchforks: I admit I underestimated these Jets

Opinion

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This article was published 25/05/2021 (1569 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A comeback for the ages. Three straight overtime contests, including the clincher going to a franchise-record triple session. And every second of the epic action played in empty rinks with a global pandemic still calling the shots. 

Oh, how sweep it was for the Winnipeg Jets, vanquishing some of the ghosts of playoffs past by wiping out the Edmonton Oilers in the wee hours of Tuesday morning in a brief, but certainly memorable, series.

The former Smythe Division rivals have now shaken hands seven times following NHL post-season battles, but this marks the first which ends with the Jets being the ones who get to keep playing. If only the late, great Dale Hawerchuk was still around to see it. No doubt “Ducky,” who died of cancer last summer, would have loved every second.

“Edmonton Oilers fans now know what it was like to be a Jets fan in the ’80s. I don’t wish that on anyone,” former Winnipeg defenceman Jim Kyte wrote on his Twitter account, adding a broken-heart emoji for good measure.

Now be honest: Who could have seen this coming? Certainly not me, considering I picked Winnipeg to bow out quickly and quietly to mighty Connor McDavid and company, suggesting they’d win but a single game on their way to being eliminated in five.

Whoops. My bad.

The demands for a public apology started arriving by email shortly after the Game 1 victory in Edmonton last Wednesday, really picked up steam after the 1-0 overtime triumph on Friday and reached a crescendo after Sunday’s incredible 5-4 rally. Heck, one reader suggested I had a bright future working for Environment Canada given the accuracy of my forecast. Zing!

And now, the pitchforks will really be pointed in my direction. So with that in mind, here’s my mea culpa folks: I was wrong. Like really, really wrong.

It was never personal, nor was it an attempt to prove I’m not a “homer” by going against the grain. The Jets winning this series is a hell of a story, the kind that hockey scribes like yours truly love to tell to the local audience. In that sense, it’s good for business, just as it was when Winnipeg went all the way to the Western Conference final back in 2018. 

I just didn’t see it happening, not with the way Winnipeg limped towards the regular-season finish line, had question marks about the health of key forwards and were getting ready to face an opponent that had the NHL’s top two scorers and dominated them in head-to-head play, including six straight regulation victories and seven of nine.

Just as I clearly underestimated the team I cover for a living, I also overestimated the Oilers. Once you take McDavid and Leon Draisaitl out of the picture, there’s not a whole lot of depth up front. Certainly not enough to compete with what the Jets have with the likes of Nikolaj Ehlers, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Paul Stastny and Andrew Copp in the lineup to go with their top trio of Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Kyle Connor, whose goal abruptly ended the series.

Not to make excuses, but Ehlers, Dubois, Stastny and Copp were question marks heading into the series when I gazed into my crystal ball. Copp and Stastny were ready to go by Game 1, Dubois joined the party in Game 2, and Ehlers got cleared for takeoff by Game 3, where he made an immediate impact by scoring the overtime winner.

Not that I’d ever take him for granted, but Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck served up a reminder of why he’s among the best at his craft, standing on his head and outplaying 39-year-old Mike Smith which gave the Jets an advantage in every game.  According to Natural Stat Trick. the Oilers outchanced the Jets 135 to 94 over the four games, yet never found a way to get a single win.

That, folks, is getting Hellebuycked.

Throw in some clutch special teams and a truly impressive commitment to team defence and self-sacrifice that wasn’t always there in the otherwise low-stakes regular season — Winnipeg blocked an incredible 47 shots in Game 4 alone, none bigger than the one their captain and highest-paid player, Wheeler, stopped with his groin late in the third period — and perhaps it’s not really a surprise that we are where we are.

Although this was a sweep, it was anything but one-sided or easy. All four games were as close as you can get, decided by a single goal if you exclude the pair of empty-netters in Game 1. Edmonton and their fans will say they deserved better, and truth be told they probably did. Still, in a results-oriented business, Winnipeg is the one still left standing.

These Jets are a battle-tested bunch, with so many of the core players having been through a few playoff wars of the past. That experience of knowing what it takes to win this time of year is invaluable, and it certainly showed against an Oilers group that is lacking in that department.

Once again, I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Although, let the record show that my other playoff picks are looking pretty good right now. Colorado and Boston both advanced quickly. Tampa Bay, Vegas, Toronto and Carolina are leading. Other than whiffing on Winnipeg, the only other one in immediate peril is Pittsburgh, who trail the New York Islanders 3-2.

As I said, it’s a terrific story. And I look forward to telling the next chapter of it, with the Jets set to take on either the Maple Leafs or Canadiens in the second round. I’ll likely offer my public opinion on that one, too, and I can’t promise it will favour the home club.

But there’s no question that, after what I witnessed over this past week, the Jets have gone a long way to making more of a believer out of me.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg