Up the creek… searching for paddle

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This article was published 07/02/2022 (1360 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets have a mighty fine mess on their hands, not to mention a crisis in confidence. And if they’re going to dig out of a huge hole — a daunting task to say the least — the hard work must begin immediately.

“Win a hockey game. If you want it in a nutshell,” interim coach Dave Lowry said Monday of the primary task coming out of the All-Star break. “If you can narrow your focus… what we have to do is get one win, and then that’s how you start a streak – you get one win and you get the next one. You can’t look and talk about winning ten games if you can’t win the first one.”

They’ll get their first crack at it tonight when they host Minnesota at Canada Life Centre. The Wild are on a 9-0-1 run, while the Jets are heading in the opposite direction, limping into the week-long hiatus by losing seven of their last eight games, including a 3-1 stinker last Tuesday night in Philadelphia.

“I mean, you can erase what happened in the first half pretty darn quick. Change the whole narrative of your season,” captain Blake Wheeler said following Monday’s practice at the downtown rink.

“You see it every year. There are teams that struggle and then figure it out and then go into the playoffs. Those are the dangerous teams you know? We still have a lot to look forward to here. Our season is far from over. We feel like we have enough to put something like that together. But it’s a matter of doing it. We’re going to need to scratch and claw our way and build some confidence back into a group that’s not very confident right now. We’re very young too, on top of it all. That’s where we’re at. We’ve got to start from scratch and from the bottom and inch our way back up this mountain.”

The Jets, at 18-17-7, are nine points out of the final Western Conference wildcard spot currently held by Calgary. They’ll play their last 40 games the next 81 nights, a compressed schedule caused by nine previous games postponed due to pandemic-related reasons.

“The position we’re in now, we need to win and we need to win a lot,” said Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, who is expected to be a busy many for the next three months. “So you can’t look at the whole picture and say ‘I’m going to win every one of these games.’ Take it one game at a time, keep the pressure off you. Let the pressure build for one game, not for a whole season. It’s one at a time and give your best out there.”

It’s not going to be easy, especially with the Jets still a severely shorthanded squad. Three more skaters were added to COVID-19 protocol on Monday in forwards Pierre-Luc Dubois and Austin Poganski, and defencemen Neal Pionk. All three will be unavailable to play against the Wild. Dubois tested positive in the United States prior to flying back to Winnipeg, but is expected to join the team in Dallas later this week and could be an option to play Friday night against the Stars. Pionk and Poganski got their results in Winnipeg.

“It’s the normal, so far. Hopefully it’s the end of that aspect of it for our team. I mean, darn near our whole team has had COVID now at this point, less a couple guys,” said Wheeler. “Hopefully that puts an end to it. Hopefully we’re able to stay off that track. You don’t want to get to used to having faces out of your line-up every game for something like that. Unfortunately, it’s just been the usual for our team.”

Winnipeg is also without the services of six injured players, including forwards Nikolaj Ehlers, David Gustafsson and C.J. Suess, and defencemen Logan Stanley, Nathan Beaulieu and Dylan Samberg. Of those, only Stanley and Beaulieu are currently skating, as both were in yellow non-contact jerseys Monday. Lowry said they could be options by the weekend.

The Jets recalled four players from the Manitoba Moose on Monday to fill the holes in defencemen Ville Heinola, Johnathan Kovacevic and Declan Chisholm, and forward Kristian Reichel.

“It’s been challenging. A lot of unusual events. Nothing has been normal for our team. Obviously we’ve struggled and haven’t played the way we’re capable of, or that we feel we’re capable of. So I think we have a lot more in the tank here,” said Wheeler.

“I can’t even remember the last time we had our full team on the ice together. Certainly a lot of teams are going to go through that. I think there has been some good fortune around the league in terms of teams will get COVID all at one time and get shut down. You don’t have the trickle effect we’ve had. We’ve had the injury bug. We lost our coach. It’s been a tough first half, one that I’ve never experienced. So I think the only thing we can really do is hit the reset button, just wipe the slate clean, start fresh (Tuesday), and try to build.”

With Dubois temporarily gone, Andrew Copp moved into his spot to centre the line with Kyle Connor and Cole Perfetti. Wheeler is now skating with Mark Scheifele and Paul Stastny. Reichel looks to play on the third line with Adam Lowry and Evgeny Svechnikov, while the fourth line at practice was Dominic Toninato, Jansen Harkins and Kristian Vesalainen. On the blue-line, Josh Morrissey and Dylan DeMelo were the top pair, followed by Brenden Dillon and Nate Schmidt. Kovacevic and Chisholm took the majority of third-pairing reps Monday, with Heinola getting some work as well.

“We don’t have a whole lot to fall back on. We have to start playing some good hockey, and even then it might not be enough,” said Wheeler. We have to start coming together a little bit as a team, hopefully get our team back together a little closer to full strength as soon as possible, and see where that takes us.”

The Jets will get a steady diet of the Central Division, with five straight games coming up. Winnipeg has lost twice to Minnesota this season, surrendering 13 goals in total. That includes a 7-1 Black Friday blowout loss in late November.

“There’s not a lot of time for us to ease back into this. These are the teams that we want to play and these are the teams that we have to pass in the standings,” said Hellebuyck. “Stealing points from them is a bigger swing. We’re coming to have to come in and we’re going to have to show up with our A-plus games.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg