Perfetti contributing any way he can Jets forward taking care of business despite scoring slump By: Mike McIntyre Posted: 5:58 PM CST Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024 Last Modified: 8:52 AM CST Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024 Updates

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This article was published 27/11/2024 (608 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LOS ANGELES — We take you back to Monday morning in Minnesota and Cole Perfetti, eager to shake a nine-game scoring slump, is the first Winnipeg Jets skater to hit the ice ahead of that night’s game against the Wild.

The young forward is joined a few minutes later by veteran teammate Nino Niederreiter, and the pair are taking turns firing shots towards the net.

“Especially right now, when the puck’s not going in, I like to get out there and just work on a couple things shot wise,” Perfetti told the Free Press on Wednesday.

“I just want to see the puck go in the net, and right now it’s just about getting extra reps doing that.”

Practice makes perfect, right? In principle, sure, but on this day, one of Niederreiter’s pucks goes right off the crossbar and directly into the face of Perfetti, who crumples to the ice.

“Luckily it hit me in the visor. That could have been bad,” Perfetti said.

That little brush with disaster perfectly sums up the current state of things for Perfetti, whose drought extended to 10 games in a 4-1 victory over Minnesota. Everything that can go wrong right now seemingly is going wrong.

Fast forward to Wednesday, when Perfetti was once again the first to take a twirl at Crypto.com Arena to get ready for a battle with the Los Angeles Kings. He was also the last to wrap his morning skate, aside from healthy scratches David Gustafsson and Dylan Coghlan, the injured Logan Stanley and backup goaltender Eric Comrie.

Perfetti would have stayed even longer but his stick snapped in half as he tried a shot — a sign it was time to hit the showers.

To be clear, you won’t get any “woe is me” stuff from Perfetti, who signed a two-year, US$6.5 million contract a few days after training camp began after the Jets balked at signing a long-term extension at this point in his career, clearly wanting to see a larger sample size before they decide the true worth of the 10th-overall pick from 2020.

“I just want to see the puck go in the net.”–Cole Perfetti

In fact, Perfetti likes where parts of his game are, even if the puck doesn’t really want to play along.

“It’s frustrating, but if you’re getting the chances, if you’re doing the right things… I’d be more worried if I wasn’t getting the chances and we weren’t as a line and knew we were doing something wrong,” said Perfetti.

He cites the fact he’s hit several posts in recent games, not to mention being the victim of a robbery last Saturday night by Nashville Predators goaltender Juuse Saros.

“It’s going to come eventually,” said Perfetti, who skates with Vlad Namestnikov and Nikolaj Ehlers. “Once the dam breaks for me personally and for us as a line, I feel like it’s really going to start to come and we’ll start to see the puck go into the net, which will be great.”

Of course, it helps that the Jets entered play Wednesday with an NHL-best 18-4-0 record, which means Perfetti’s personal power outage hasn’t impacted the team as a whole.

“You can find other ways to contribute to a win,” said Perfetti, who has chipped in with four assists in the last 10 games and is now up to 15 points (4G, 11A) in 22 games to sit in a tie for seventh in team scoring.

“No, the puck’s not going in the net right now, but worry about my defensive game, worry about how we are playing when we are on the ice. Are we still attacking and not giving the other team any great looks? That’s what you have to do right now. Goals are going to come, and they’re going to come in waves. But right now, while the luck is not on your side, do all the other little things correct and help your team win that way.”

Perfetti has been down this road before, including a career-long 23 game span last year in which he failed to light the lamp and had just two assists. That led to several stints as a healthy scratch and what he admits was a crisis in confidence which ultimately proved to be a painful but necessary lesson.

“Going through it for the first time really ever last year, you learn a lot about how not to deal with it. I feel like I kind of let it eat me up,” Perfetti said.

“Goals are going to come, and they’re going to come in waves. But right now, while the luck is not on your side, do all the other little things correct and help your team win that way.”–Cole Perfetti

“The more it went on and on, the more I pressed and the more it didn’t come and the worse I felt about it.”

As a result, he’s taking a much different approach this time around, one he believes is translating into solid overall play. His coach, Scott Arniel, concurs.

“His game isn’t all centred around just scoring goals and sometimes when it doesn’t go in, you have a tendency to get farther away from the net,” said Arniel.

“He recognizes that when he gets inside more, he’ll get those looks. He’s had some Grade-A’s. Sooner or later, they’ll go in. He has other responsibilities. Hopefully he starts off and gets a crazy bounce or something or an empty-netter to go in and that just gets him going and feeling good again. But I’ve really liked his game. He’s playing really well without the puck.”

Perhaps a dose of good karma will get the hockey gods on his side. Last Friday night in Pittsburgh, at the start of this season-long, six-game road trip, Perfetti had a chance to score his fifth of the year on a breakaway bid with the Penguins having pulled Tristan Jarry for an extra attacker.

Rather than shoot, he passed to teammate Kyle Connor who had joined him on what was a 2-on-0. Connor is the team’s leading scorer and certainly doesn’t need help in that department, but this gesture allowed him to record his first Gordie Howe hat track, having recorded an assist and a fight against Sidney Crosby earlier in the game.

“I’d love the goal. Obviously want to see the puck go in the net myself right now,” said Perfetti. “But as soon as I got the puck, I knew I was getting it to him. That’s all I was thinking about, getting him his Gordie Howe.”

Make no mistake: A little gesture like that goes a long way when it comes to team building.

“Obviously everyone wants to score goals and that’s the main objective of the game,” said Perfetti.

“But at the same time the more you press and put pressure on yourself, it’s just going to mount up and the more you do that, the less chances you’re going to score. Because now you’re gripping your stick when you do get a chance, or you’re beating yourself up if you miss a chance. Eventually it’s going to go. I’m just waiting for the game that it comes.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X and Bluesky: @mikemcintyrewpg