Roots of Jets resurgence offers road map for success

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/04/2023 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LAS VEGAS — We know the “who” (Vegas Golden Knights), the “what” (first-round of the playoffs), the “where” (T-Mobile Arena and Canada Life Centre) and the “when” (starting Tuesday night).

But how about the “why” when it comes to the Winnipeg Jets?

After flying high for half the regular-season and flirting with first place in both the Central Division and Western Conference, the hockey club appeared headed for a crash-landing. Yet here we are, safely on the ground in Sin City preparing for a best-of-seven series that was starting to look like a pipe dream.

One of the staples of journalism is to always explore the five Ws. With that in mind, allow me to offer my take on the reasons behind the resurgence — and why I think it might just be sustainable.

It starts up top with general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, who pulled off a pair of shrewd moves at last month’s trade deadline which ultimately helped the Jets get back on track.

Forwards Nino Niederreiter and Vladislav Namestnikov have been game-changers. and the fact that all they cost was a pair of future draft picks (second round and fourth round) rather than active players or prospects makes their additions even more valuable.

I still can’t believe the Nashville Predators couldn’t drive the return up any higher, considering Niederreiter is also under contract for another season. They certainly did their division rivals a solid, and I suspect many of the other 30 GMs around the league are wishing they could have got in on that action.

Niederreiter (six goals, seven assists in 22 games) and Namestnikov (two goals, eight assists in 20 games) have helped balance out the lineup, making Winnipeg a more potent opponent.

Namestnikov has become a Swiss Army Knife type of player, not unlike Mathieu Perreault and Andrew Copp used to be for the Jets. He can play wing or up the middle. He can be on your power play or penalty kill. He can play on your fourth line or your first line.

Currently, Namestnikov is the second-line centre between Nikolaj Ehlers and Blake Wheeler. That trio — which might have seemed like a bit of an odd grouping at first — has silenced any critics with their play. Both the eye test and the underlying analytics confirm that.

Ehlers is starting to look as dangerous as ever. Wheeler, at the age of 36, seems to have some extra pep in his step. And Namestnikov is the glue holding it together.

Then there’s Niederreiter, who has done a bit of everything for the Jets so far. He’s the net-front presence they were lacking, and he plays a hard, at times edgy game that drives other teams batty. He’s currently on the wing with Adam Lowry and Mason Appleton, which is technically the third line but has arguably been Winnipeg’s best in recent weeks.

Niederreiter has led by example on, and off, the ice, and the fact he is now appearing in a 10th consecutive post-season is a major asset.

I was critical of Cheveldayoff in this space for not doing more to help his club at the time, believing he should have taken a bigger swing than he did given the uncertain future of so many core players. This was the year to go “all-in.”

I stand by that, but I’ll admit the two moves he did make were home runs. There was plenty of chatter about Cheveldayoff’s job security, and missing the playoffs after such a hot start to the year would not have helped his cause.

Now? I suspect he’s not going anywhere.

Another big development for the Jets was cooked up by coach Rick Bowness and endorsed by top centre Mark Scheifele, with the slumping superstar agreeing to shift to the wing in order to play on a new-look top line along with fellow centre Pierre-Luc Dubois and Kyle Connor.

As the story goes, both Scheifele and Dubois wanted to skate beside the team’s 47-goal scorer from last year. So the decision was made to let both of them. Bowness told me on Saturday he didn’t know if it would last one shift, one period, one game or something longer.

“It was the buy-in from Mark,” Bowness said of why it’s working so well. A buy-in, I should add, that didn’t always seem to be there from Scheifele, who was starting to resort to some ugly, old habits.

“I think it gave the whole team a boost because right away, they scored. All of a sudden, that took a lot of pressure off a lot of guys because early in that game they scored, Mark scored. It gave them a boost and it gave that line a boost,” said Bowness.

Now, as the playoffs get set to begin, Scheifele remains on the right side, as strange as that still sounds. Not only does that top line have the potential to be one of the best in the league, the creation of it also led to the reconfigured second and third lines that have worked so well.

There are plenty of other reasons for Winnipeg’s successful post-season push along with the above.

Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, whose baseline of play is somewhere between “very good” and “excellent,” found yet another gear down the stretch. Some poor puck luck turned around as well, as the advanced statistics which suggested the Jets deserved better than they were getting during portions of their slump proved to be true.

The power play started showing signs of life, while the penalty kill remained a major strength. And the Jets responded the way you’d hope with their backs up against the wall, coming up big in the clutch. No bigger than last Tuesday in St. Paul, when they stood tall following a hard-fought (literally) battle against the Minnesota Wild.

It wasn’t just the fact they won their second-last game of the season to clinch their spot, but the way they won it.

The sight of Brenden Dillon getting physical with Ryan Hartman in response to his cheap-shot on Ehlers, and Lowry squaring off with Ryan Reaves following his crushing hit on Dylan DeMelo, put an exclamation point on a pledge the players made to each other last fall in Banff, one they all signed and which hangs in their locker room.

Winnipeg always had a strong core of talent. But they didn’t always play the right way, or for each other, including at various points this year.

But from Cheveldayoff making them deeper than ever, to Bowness pushing the right buttons and the players themselves responding to adversity and rising to the occasion, they now have a legitimate template for success.

In the race for four more Ws — that would be wins — they’re going be a tough out for Vegas.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg