‘Just leave it all out there’

The Winnipeg Jets are fighting for their playoff lives on Thursday night inside Canada Life Centre. But head coach Scott Arniel said the wildfire situation in various parts of the province brings some much-needed perspective their on-ice predicament.

“This is hockey. This is sport. That’s real life,” Arniel said following the morning skate.

“It’s getting close to home for all of us. There’s a lot of people that are in tough situations right now. You pray for the safety for all of those people, but also for our first responders, our firefighters, everybody that’s in the middle of that.”

Arniel, whose ties to this community run all the way back to the early 1980s and the 1.0 Jets era, said the organization is thinking of those on the front lines and everyone potentially in harm’s way.

“We hope they’re safe and doing what they have to do to protect everybody. It is unfortunate and we’ve seen it across this country there the last few years,” he said, adding the Jets would go out and try to do their part by giving people something to cheer about.

“At the end of the day, hopefully we can go out and win a hockey game for those people,” said Arniel. “We know that they’re all a part of — they may not be in the building (Thursday night) but they are a part of Manitoba and Winnipeg and they’re behind the Jets.”

Is there such a thing as a first-place curse?

That seems to be the case this spring, where all four division champions were in danger of having their Stanley Cup dreams shattered in the second round of the playoffs.

The Pacific Division winning Vegas Golden Knights were eliminated on Wednesday night in five games courtesy of the third-place Edmonton Oilers.

The Jets (Central) and Washington Capitals (Metropolitan) both entered play Thursday trailing 3-1 in their best-of-seven series to the second-place teams in their divisions (Dallas Stars and the Carolina Hurricanes), needing three straight wins to keep playing.

And the top team in the Atlantic during the regular-season, the Toronto Maple Leafs, must win two straight elimination games starting Friday night against the third-place Florida Panthers.

What gives?

“When you get in the playoffs, all that stuff — other than having home ice — kind of goes out the window. Whatever team is up and running and playing their game consistently for five, six, seven games, however long it takes, that’s what it’s about at this time of year,” said Arniel.

“And there’s a different brand of hockey that you often hear guys talk about. You see it some nights through the 82 games, but during the playoffs it’s another animal. It’s a whole different type of hockey. And the teams that can play it consistently the most are the ones who usually are standing at the end.”

Winnipeg, Washington, Vegas and Toronto finished first, second, third and fourth-overall in the NHL standings. Yet none of them may ultimately escape the round of eight.

Luke Schenn has been here before. Thursday night will be the 10th playoff elimination game he’s played over the course of his career.

The two-time Stanley Cup champion had gone 5-4 in those situations, including the dramatic Game 7 triumph earlier this month against St. Louis.

So what advice did the oldest, most experienced player on the Jets have for his teammates?

“It’s one game at a time really, that’s all it comes down to,” Schenn said prior to the pivotal puck drop in downtown Winnipeg.

“Obviously you kind of learn some things throughout the series, make adjustments, and at the end of the day you play for the guy in the room next to you and just leave it all out there. You don’t want to hesitate in a game like this, you want to be on your toes, be aggressive, and just it’s exciting. These are the games that are exciting, that you play for.”

There have been 32 teams to rally from 3-1 deficits to win a series, which equates to about a nine per cent chance. Schenn, who hasn’t been on any of those teams, said the key is to not look too far ahead.

“You look at it and you obviously think it’s no question a tough task, especially a team that is playing pretty well right now,” he said. “You kind of dumb it down a little bit almost and just kind of think of one thing at a time. There’s no point thinking about the next one.”

The Los Angeles Kings are the last Stanley Cup champions to erase a 3-1 deficit on their way to hockey history, doing so in 2014 in the first round against the San Jose Sharks. They actually went a step further, as they originally trailed 3-0 before winning four straight contests.

“If you want to win the ultimate prize, there’s tons of adversity and that’s why it’s so hard to win,” said Schenn, pointing to what the Jets already did against the Blues.

The trade deadline addition was held out of the Winnipeg lineup in Game 3 in Dallas but was back for Games 4 and 5. It sure sounds like that may have been injury-related rather than performance-related.

“There are some other things, I guess, just going on behind the scenes,” said Schenn. “Different changes for different reasons and, at the end of the day, I’ll keep that between what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Schenn has been speaking daily with younger brother, Brayden, who is the captain of the St. Louis team which took Winnipeg to the limit in the first round. Brayden is now skating with Team Canada at the World Championships currently being held in Sweden and Denmark.

“I talked to him (Thursday) morning, he’s having a good time over there and just obviously paying attention. Obviously he’s rooting for the Jets now, there’s no question about that,” said Schenn.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X and Bluesky: @mikemcintyrewpg

Mike McIntyre
Reporter

Mike McIntyre is a sports reporter whose primary role is covering the Winnipeg Jets. After graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College in 1995, he spent two years gaining experience at the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 1997, where he served on the crime and justice beat until 2016. Read more about Mike.

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