Move over Makar, here comes Morrissey

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This article was published 10/12/2022 (1007 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CHICAGO – A lot has been made about the Rick Bowness effect and what it’s meant to the Winnipeg Jets. And for good reason.

Bowness, just months into his first season in Winnipeg, has the Jets atop the Central Division, boasting an 18-7-1 record through 26 games. Even with plenty of hockey to be played, it remains quite the start for a club that finished 10 points below the playoff line last year, despite having an arguably better roster.

While there’s been team success, equally as impressive has been the vast improvements of individual players.

Pierre-Luc Dubois and Kyle Connor are on a point-per-game pace, with fellow forwards Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele not far behind. Dubois is living up to his lofty goal of being among the NHL’s top two-way players – something Bowness encouraged in chats over the offseason – and Scheifele’s improvement in the defensive zone has been on full display.

Then there’s the play of goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, who after a down season in 2021-22, is the front-runner for the Vezina Trophy. Speaking of potential award winners, Cole Perfetti is making his case for rookie of the year, eating up big minutes on the team’s top line and is an integral piece on the second power-play unit.

But perhaps no one has benefited more from the arrival of Bowness than Josh Morrissey. The Jets top blue-liner leads the Jets in scoring, with five goals and 25 assists, highlighting a defensive group that, along with Hellebuyck, is a big part of why Winnipeg has allowed the third-fewest goals in the NHL.

“From my first call with him, he basically challenged me to be able to do more and push myself and continue to take my game to new levels,” Morrissey said, while also giving credit to associate coach Scott Arniel, the team’s defensive specialist. “I remember getting off that call and it’s all you want as a player, is the coach to have the confidence in you to play you, but also believe that you have more to give and room to improve your game.”

With two assists in a 3-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday, Morrissey became the fastest defenceman in Jets/Atlanta Thrashers franchise history to reach 30 points in a season. The 27-year-old succeeded the previous mark set by Dustin Byfuglien, who took 29 games while with the Thrashers in 2010-11 — the year before the team packed up and relocated to Winnipeg.

Some might be surprised by the sudden jump in offence – after all, he’s just seven points shy of his career-high 37 points set last year – but don’t count Morrissey in that group. Though he’s better known for his defensive prowess over his seven-year NHL career, Morrissey was an offensive weapon in junior, registering 196 points in 249 games playing for Prince Albert and Kelowna in the Western Hockey League.

“When I first got into the league, if I wanted to play in the NHL there was a (specific) role that was available, with some of the guys like Dustin Byfuglien and the veterans that we had in Winnipeg. Those first few years there really wasn’t any power-play time to be had,” Morrissey said. “It’s been awesome, though, to be pushed by Bones. It’s felt mentally stimulating.”

Another significant part of Morrissey’s rise in scoring is the systems Bowness has installed, which includes asking his defencemen to get more involved on offence. Bowness made clear to reporters on the first day of training camp that the 24 goals the Jets got out of their defence last year wasn’t enough, adding he wanted to at least double that production before declaring: “Our D are coming.”

Bowness also hasn’t hesitated to dish out tough love, when necessary, particularly when it comes to the top-end players, Morrissey included. After a slow start in a 5-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 4, Bowness first took ownership, as the head coach, for not having his players ready, before delivering this biting proclamation: “The second thing is I’m not a babysitter. These guys are men, they’re professionals and they’re paid to show up ready to go to work. The third thing on that is you cannot play this game without passion, without emotion.”

It’s the kind of clear, while still constructive, criticism rarely, if ever, shared publicly by former head coach Paul Maurice. Maurice quit on the team last December, claiming the need for a new voice, his resignation coming amid rumours of a severely fractured locker room under his leadership.

Asked why that hard-nosed approach seems to work with Bowness, Morrissey didn’t name Maurice, specifically, but he made clear what’s occurring this season is a vast improvement from previous years.

“I can only speak for myself…it just seems like there’s a trust level with the players. It’s not some days that he’s on that sort of level of accountability and other days that he’s not. Or some guys he is, some guys he isn’t. It’s been everyone, and it’s been every day,” Morrissey said. “We talked about looking in the mirror this offseason, as a group of players, and from veteran guys, the leadership (group) and throughout our entire team. Through the start of training camp, we asked how can we be a better team? How can we be more receptive to coaching, and not even just from the coaches, but from our teammates, whether it’s on the ice or in the locker room.

“With Bones, every day is the same message, and it doesn’t matter who you are. We made that commitment to him and to each other, that we want to be coached and we want to be held accountable, because we feel we have something to prove here based on the last few seasons. Personally, it’s been refreshing to have that level of coaching and accountability. You understand what your expectations are every night.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton