Adversity a blessing in disguise

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This article was published 12/04/2023 (924 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DENVER — The Winnipeg Jets might have punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup playoffs later than they had hoped, but goaltender Connor Hellebuyck sees the team’s late-season struggles as a blessing in disguise.

“We battled our adversity. It might have taken us a little bit longer, but I think we figured ourselves out,” Hellebuyck said following a 3-1 road win over the Minnesota Wild Tuesday. “We have the character in the room and now we know what our game is. To come out and show it through this stretch is huge.”

The Jets needed just one point to secure a playoff berth, in what was their second-last game of the regular season. Winnipeg wraps things up in Denver on Thursday with a date against the Colorado Avalanche before embarking on its sixth trip to the post-season since relocating from Atlanta in 2011.

Winnipeg struggled for much of the second half of the season, going 12-17-2 before reeling off wins in five of their last six games. The dip in play led to a significant drop in the standings, with the Jets moving from first in the Central Division to eighth in the Western Conference.

Simply put, the Jets have been playing playoff-style hockey already for more than a month.

“We know we have a good team in here. We just got away from what made us good. We got too passive, we got too far away from what made us good at the start of the year. That happens,” said Mark Scheifele, whose team-leading 42nd goal of the year proved to be the game-winner over the Wild. “Confidence gets low and you’re kind of unsure what to do. We battled hard the last little while to get back to being in the playoffs. We wish we would have stayed at the top, but that happens.”

The Jets have secured the final wild-card spot in the West, meaning they’ll play the No. 1 seed in the conference. That’s still to be determined, with the only two options being the Vegas Golden Knights and Edmonton Oilers.

The Golden Knights can clinch the West with a single point in their game against the Seattle Kraken Thursday. If they lose outright — meaning the game in lost in regulation time — then the Oilers can surpass them over the San Jose Sharks on the same night.

“I know people had written us off there for a while. We just fought through it. Every team that gets into the playoffs at this time of year and you’re on the bottom end, you’ve got to fight through some adversity. You’ve got to fight through some second-guessing and that’s fine,” said Jets head coach Rick Bowness. “That’s all part of our business but give our players full marks because they stayed focused on the process of what we had to do, game in and game out to get us into the playoffs. So, good for them.”

It’s unclear when exactly Game 1 of the playoffs will be for the Jets, but it’s likely to be either be Monday or Tuesday night.

LATE-GAME PUNISHMENT: Neal Pionk has been fined by the NHL for his heavy-handed work Tuesday in Minnesota.

The Jets defenceman’s wallet is $5,000 lighter — the punishment for a cross-check he delivered to Wild forward Marcus Johansson during Winnipeg’s 3-1 victory. The incident occurred at 19:10 of the third period, with Pionk being assessed a major penalty for the infraction.

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Wild forward Ryan Hartman was given a one-game suspension, which will cost him US$9,189.19, for interference on Jets forwards Nikolaj Ehlers. Hartman delivered a heavy hit to an unsuspecting Ehlers, who was shaken up but is no worse for wear, at the 11:28 mark of the third frame. Hartman was assessed a two-minute minor penalty.

The money goes to the NHL Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

– with files from Jason Bell

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

@jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.