McGroarty’s first appearance in Winnipeg on hold; Pens ship former Jets pick to minors

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/10/2024 (367 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It looks like Rutger McGroarty will have to wait a little bit longer before playing his first game against the Winnipeg Jets.

The rookie forward was assigned to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Wednesday, which means he won’t likely be suiting up for the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins when they come to town on Sunday.

McGroarty, who was chosen 14th overall by the Jets in the 2022 NHL Draft, requested a trade during the offseason and was eventually granted his wish as a deal was worked out for Moose Jaw Warriors centre Brayden Yager, the Pens’ first-round pick in their 2023 draft.

Although McGroarty never gave a reason for the trade request, the belief was that he had some reservations about potentially spending some time in the American Hockey League — which is where he’s ultimately heading to continue his development.

McGroarty had no points and recorded two shots on goal in three NHL games while averaging 11:37 of ice time.

The Jets travel to Pittsburgh for the second and final meeting of the regular season on Nov. 22.

Yager was named captain of the Warriors earlier this month and is off to a strong start to the Western Hockey League season, amassing four goals and seven points through five games.

PK rolling

Winnipeg Jets assistant coach Dean Chynoweth has been around long enough to know it’s way too early for victory laps.

Chynoweth took over a penalty killing unit that was in need of a reboot and the early returns have been favourable, with five consecutive minors killed off to start the campaign.

“Well, I mean, it’s been a work in progress. It’s new to the guys here, because it is a little more aggressive, and there’s some different responsibilities and triggers on it, but I’ve really liked how they bought into it,” said Chynoweth, noting the Jets have been disciplined through three games.

Spreading the wealth

Chynoweth is also in charge of running the defence corps and one of the things we’ve seen in the early stages of the season is a fairly even distribution of ice time.

Josh Morrissey leads all Jets skaters at 24:19 per game, while Dylan Samberg is second at 22:27 (a sizable jump from the 15:38 he averaged last season while playing mostly on the third pairing).

Neal Pionk (20:37) and Dylan DeMelo (20:32) are both up over 20 minutes per game, while Haydn Fleury (15:13) and Colin Miller (14:58) are also getting plenty of ice time on the revamped third pair.

“I’m a big believer in quality over quantity,” said Chynoweth. “With that, some guys have a figure in their head of how many minutes they’d like to play, and I kind of try to preach to them that the more important thing is having quality shifts, and then the quantity will come.”

It’s important to remember that three games is a small sample size and that one of those was a 6-0 blowout and the two others went into overtime, but the ability to not have to shelter the third pairing as much should ease the pressure on the Jets’ top four defenders.

Speaking of quantity

After a relatively slow start in terms of games played, the Jets are about to end the month by playing seven times during 14 days to wrap up October.

While there are some benefits to having some additional practice time at the start of a season to help get systems up to speed, a busy stretch can also allow players to get into the groove of a new season.

“A nice rhythm? I don’t know,” said Jets forward Gabe Vilardi. “Ideally you don’t want to be playing every other day, especially with travel. But it’s just the scheduling this year. Everyone’s going to be going through their own things with that Four Nations thing, so we’ve got to just deal with it.”

The league will break in February for the Four Nations Face-Off, a mid-season tournament featuring the best players from Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland.

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

X: @WiebesWorld