Jets can’t delay take off

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This article was published 10/02/2023 (940 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets are anticipating a bit of a rough landing as they get ready to welcome the Chicago Blackhawks to Canada Life Centre on Saturday.

The Jets are coming off an extended layoff, with the NHL all-star break and players’ bye week running back-to-back. It will be 11 days between their last game — a 4-2 win over the St. Louis Blues on Jan. 30 — and the tilt against the Blackhawks.

While the Jets aren’t viewing their current situation as a negative — the time off was utilized well, a chance to reset and get healthy — they do feel there will be some inevitable growing pains in their return to game action.

“We’d all love to come out there and feel like there’s no rust and go up 3-0 in the first period but, realistically, there’s going to be some rust, there’s going to be some missed passes,” Jets forward Pierre-Luc Dubois said after practice Friday. “Where we can decide how it goes is our intensity level, our mindset in that sense, keeping it simple at times. Go one step at a time.”

In order to alleviate as much rust as possible, the Jets coaching staff has put the club through a pair of fast-paced practices this week. Thursday’s lasted 75 minutes and required a dry scrape of the ice and Friday’s also eclipsed an hour.

Head coach Rick Bowness was intentional in picking his drills, which meant a fair amount of work on special teams and conditioning, including a couple of bag skates, as well as plenty of puck handling. They opened Friday’s workout with every player making a circle at centre ice for a passing drill, which started with two pucks before adding more, as players followed their passes in what looked like organized chaos.

“We call it the (Jets assistant coach) Marty Johnston drill. He had been hanging onto that one for a while,” Bowness said with a chuckle. “It’s always good to throw new drills in that you know they’re going to enjoy. That was fun for them, and we want to get them handling the puck as much as they can and have a little fun while they’re doing it. It can’t all be dead serious drills, so they had a little fun with that one.”

The Jets weren’t having a ton of fun prior to their break, having lost five of their previous seven games before earning the win over the Blues. That victory over St. Louis helped stop the bleeding and changed the narrative around the club, but it will mean little if they can’t beat a lowly Blackhawks club, currently ranked last in the Central Division, at the end of a back-to-back (Chicago plays Arizona at home Friday).

They will need to be ready, as the Blackhawks have had the opportunity to shake off their rust, with Saturday being their third game since the all-star break. Chicago had the luxury of having its player bye week prior to the annual NHL showcase game.

“We understand as much as it was a vacation and time away from the rink, being a professional, you got to take care of yourself and a bunch of guys were riding the bike or doing some stuff wherever they were for the last eight, nine days,” said Jets defenceman Brenden Dillon. “It’s getting our timing on. It’s nice that we have a couple of practices here to get that, another morning skate (Saturday). Guys were competing, there was some physicality in the practices, and we did some scrimmage and game-like stuff (Thursday). So, overall, I think it’s been an awesome two days here, but we know we want to hit the ground running (Saturday) night.”

Something that could help the Jets ease into their final 30-game stretch is to have an effective special-teams effort against the Blackhawks. Chicago is near the bottom of the league on the power play and penalty kill, both ranked 24th out of 32 teams.

The Jets have dominated the Blackhawks this season, winning all three games so far by a combined score of 14-3. They’ve also pushed them around on special teams, scoring six goals on 12 man-advantages and allowing just one goal against on eight penalty kills.

“It’s so hard to score goals five-on-five that special teams is going to be such an important thing here for these next 30 games, gearing us up for playoffs and especially once we get in,” said Dillon. “We’ve got high standards for our group on PK, powerplay, five-on-five, so we wanted to have a good couple of days of practice before we get back.”

The Jets (32-19-1) entered Friday’s NHL action second place in the Central, five points shy of the Dallas Stars (30-13-10), who have played one more game. They also have the Colorado Avalanche (27-19-4) on their heels, seven points back with two games in hand.

The intensity is only going to ramp up as the regular season inches closer to the finish line. How the Jets play over the next few weeks could impact how general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff approaches the league’s trade deadline on March 3.

“I don’t think about all of that. Right now, we’re happy with where we are, and we know we have to take our game to another level. That’s where our focus is on, is the guys that we have, the team we have, the position we’re in and what we have to do to keep getting better and raise our team game to another level, which is going to be necessary now and until the end of the season and into the playoffs,” said Bowness. “Then when you get to the playoffs, it’s another level entirely, as we all know. So, right now it’s just enjoy this. We’ve worked hard to be where we are and give the players a lot of credit for that. Let’s enjoy it but also know we have work ahead of us. We’ve got a long way to go; we haven’t done anything yet and we just have to keep pushing.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton