What’s it gonna be fans? Trash talk or maturity?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/10/2014 (4001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Negative is so easy, and the Winnipeg Jets provide plenty of ammunition.

They’ve been unable to make any real on-ice breakthrough since relocating here more than three years ago.

Of course, off the ice, it’s been nothing but breakthroughs as the franchise is on solid financial ground and an asset to the overall league picture.

It’s fascinating, given our history, how quickly we have come to taking that for granted.

But it’s on the ice and in the standings where a portion of Jets Nation is losing patience.

Heading into this season, the litany of concerns — some would call them crimes — is long.

— No playoffs in three Winnipeg seasons, and seven in a row for the franchise.

— The recent past suggests a complete inability to defend at a competent NHL level for more than 10 days at a time. Maybe less. Even in the team’s one highlight season (2006-07) since joining the league in 1999, it still gave up three goals a night.

— You could cite progress in this category, given the Jets have improved 32 goals against from last season to their last Thrashers effort (269-237) but it’s not near enough. Both totals were/are still bottom-10 in the NHL.

— Being a one-line team in terms of production for far too long.

— Late-season standings meltdowns. They have been a constant with this club for a long time, including under new coach Paul Maurice last winter and spring.

— Goaltending. It’s the subject causing fans the most stress, so much so even a so-so exhibition game had many all roiled up.

— Roster issues. GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has stuck by and even endorsed much of the core group of this team via new contracts, despite its lack of success. The turnover from repeated unsuccessful Atlanta days remains small.

There are other items, varying in importance to various factions, but you have the picture.

The plan going forward, Cheveldayoff has consistently said, is to do things differently than in the past and build steadily from within, and without panic or emotion.

It’s why Claude Noel, who was inexperienced as an NHL head coach, was given as much rope as he was. And it’s why Maurice, who took over last January, will likely have an even longer rope. He has more experience and he has articulated a clear plan forward.

Again, much to the chagrin of many, it will not happen overnight.

This training camp and this pre-season were being billed as different. Fitness was going to the top of the priority list, with defending a close second.

Maurice has insisted the results of exhibition games would be inconsequential. He has stuck to that theme, but there are surely pockets of frustration given the amount of small — if the team is to be believed — injuries that have been incurred in this new-emphasis camp.

Maurice’s remarks after falling to 2-4 in the pre-season with Thursday’s loss in Calgary revealed a dissatisfaction with the team’s game there.

He believes things would be better, the progress more tangible, had his original plan to have the majority of his “real” team together for the final three exhibition games been possible.

There’s no way to tell if that’s founded in reality at this stage. There just hasn’t been enough of the A-team — in its expected combinations — together each night to judge.

One chance is left for a pre-season impression, tonight at home against Calgary.

Maurice is the jockey who thinks he has a pretty decent horse that’s been training better. There have been good stretches of races before, but today, it doesn’t look terribly confident in some of the warmup laps. The big race is about to begin against some rivals that have the most solid of pedigrees.

So as a fan, what will you choose?

An indulgent, mature approach that affords the new coach a reasonable opportunity to effect change? Will you trust the well-regarded jockey to at least get into the race?

Or will it be the easy way?

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca