Bob Essensa thrilled to pull on Jets jersey again; his body, however…

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This article was published 17/10/2016 (3260 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bob Essensa didn’t make any promises, but he sure sounded like a guy who’d buy a round for anybody willing to step in front of a few pucks on Saturday afternoon.

The 51-year-old from Toronto will strap on the pads as part of the Winnipeg Jets alumni squad taking on the Edmonton Oilers old-timers during Heritage Classic weekend festivities at Investors Group Field on the weekend.

Essensa, a Jets 1.0 goalie for parts of six NHL seasons, was one of the first players added to the roster by alumni team captain Dale Hawerchuk during the summer. He’ll split netminding duties with Daniel Berthiaume.

They get the privilege of stopping shots from Oilers legends Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey and, the greatest of them all, Wayne Gretzky.

Essensa figures the fellows in blue and orange will carry sticks with a bit of lighting left in them.

“You look at their roster, how many hall of famers they’ve got — countless,” Essensa, whose regular job is coaching goalies for the Boston Bruins, said Monday afternoon as the club prepared to play the Jets a few hours later at the MTS Centre.

“Hopefully, we have a few shot-blockers in our midst, but I don’t know. I played with a few of them and I don’t remember them blocking too many.”

His blueliners will be Dave Babych, Dave Ellett, Mike Ford, Mario Marois, Moe Mantha, Tim Watters, Teppo Numminen and Jim Kyte.

“I’m excited about (the game), obviously. I’m not sure my body is as excited about it,” Essensa said.

The alumni game is Saturday at 3 p.m. The Heritage Classic between the current Jets and Oilers – with a two real NHL points on the line – goes Sunday at 2 p.m.

Essensa played for both Winnipeg and Edmonton during his 15-year pro career, and also had stops in Detroit, Phoenix, Vancouver and Buffalo.

“I’m one of the few guys that could wear either jersey out there this coming weekend. Hopefully, I still have some friends over on the other side of the fence and they’ll take it easy on us 51-year-old netminders,” he said with a chuckle.

“Even though I played for both teams, Winnipeg still has my heart. They were the team that drafted me, and my wife and I had a lot of fun here. My wife (Jeanine), it will probably be her first trip back here in 15 or 20 years, so she’s excited about seeing the city again.”

Essensa, still beloved by Jets fans, was chosen in the fourth round of the 1983 NHL Draft. He played four seasons at Michigan State before turning pro in 1987.

He got his big break during the 1988-89 season when Jets interim head coach Rick Bowness called him up from Fort Wayne of the International Hockey League to join the struggling NHL squad.

Essensa played with the Jets from 1988-94 before he was traded to the Detroit Red Wings. He led the NHL in shutouts — five — during the 1991-92 season in Winnipeg and finished third in voting for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goalie that year.

His most vivid memory of his time here is the 1989-90 playoffs, when the Jets had the Oilers, their nemesis, on the ropes but let them slip away.

Winnipeg defenceman Dave Ellett scored on a slapshot from the point in the second overtime period at the Winnipeg Arena to give the hosts a 4-3 victory and a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven first-round series. But Edmonton stormed back with three straight wins to claim the series and dump the Jets from the playoffs.

And win the Stanley Cup.

“Certainly, 1990 still kind of stings for most of us,” he said.

Essensa, who once got a standing ovation at the old barn on Maroons Road when he and the Oilers played a pre-season game against the Vancouver Canucks years after the Jets left for Phoenix, said he loved his time playing in the Manitoba capital.

“There was always something to be said about the small Canadian towns,” he said. The players seemed to bond together for whatever reason, maybe more so than in some of the bigger cities. The biggest thing was we had some quality people, and the town was always great to us.”

Essensa retired in 2002 and stepped away from the game for a year, but was asked to join the Boston organization as a goalie coach.

He worked closely with Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask when the Bruins finally captured the Stanley Cup in 2011, the team’s first NHL title in 39 years.

“It was a very special time,” he recalled. “When you get that far, you want to close the deal. You get to a point in your career where you think you’re never going to win it, so it’s nice to close one out.”

Essensa skates almost daily with the Bruins but had a rare chance to don his goalie equipment last week when Rask took a day off from practice.

“I was fortunate enough to strap them on then and have the big boys shooting on me, which was good for their confidence and not so good for mine,” he said.

Essensa said he’s aware Jets goalie Michael Hutchinson, a 2008 Boston draft pick, has had a goalie mask designed for Sunday’s Heritage Classic that’s a throwback to the old lid he wore back in the day.

“Hutch was one of those kids that always worked hard. I always loved his skill set, a big guy that was a lefty that could move as well as he did, I always thought there could be a place for him, and Winnipeg was obviously good enough to find him,” he said.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell