Chevy’s off-season moves set up Jets for playoff run

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/09/2017 (2918 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hello again, folks. National Hockey League camps are opening this week but before I look forward, I thought I would take a look back at what was the highly anticipated off-season of Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff.

Before my summer break, I wrote a column about how I felt it was imperative Chevy make some strong moves and take advantage of the team’s young, high-end talent.

They are currently on bargain contracts and the salary cap is a headache that’s looming.

To varying degrees, Patrik Laine, Jacob Trouba, Nikolaj Ehlers, Josh Morrissey and Adam Lowry are going to be due big raises in the next couple of years. Others require breakout seasons to have any significant hit on the salary cap and those will likely end up in cheaper, short-term deals.

I actually broke out laughing when Vegas made Chris Thorburn its pick from the Jets in the June expansion draft, but then had to wait before learning the price the Jets paid for the desert guys to make that useless selection.

The Jets moved from the 13th pick to 24th in the NHL Entry Draft to keep their draft-and-develop team together. They also gave up a third-round pick in the 2019 draft.

I like their first pick, Kristian Vesalainen, although I was more impressed with a couple of defencemen they could have taken at pick No. 13. However, they kept known talent over speculating on the future, and I was fine with that.

The Jets also bought out Mark Stuart over the summer. This gave me great hope, as regular readers know I haven’t been the biggest fan of Stuart or Thorburn.

I have great respect for both players’ careers — it’s just their time as decent on-ice contributors has long been over.

In that column I stated the urgency in obtaining a decent left-shot defenceman and a goalie to compete with incumbent Connor Hellebuyck.

Cheveldayoff responded by jumping into free agency with a passion (for him), landing goalie Steve Mason from the Philadelphia Flyers and defenceman Dmitry Kulikov from the Buffalo Sabres.

These players weren’t on the top part of my list but this showed me the Jets GM looked like he was finally focusing on addressing the needs to be a winner today.

In fairness to him, he may have gone after better players via trades through Las Vegas, etc., with the price being too high. Mason can be very good, and the opposite, but he gives hope. His price of $4.1 million a year for two years was OK because of the short term.

Kulikov is coming off a bad, injury-riddled season in which he only played 47 games. Advanced statistics suggest he was terrible and in the eight or so games I saw him play I wholeheartedly concur.

Everybody’s hope is he returns to his best game that he played while he was with the Florida Panthers. The $4,333,333 per year made me squirm but the three-year term was acceptable, considering the difficulty in attracting top UFAs to Winnipeg when you’re a losing team. If they start winning consistently better players will come.

Cheveldayoff then went into summer mode and I was content. He had moved out the old warriors who were dragging the team down, and injected new blood into prime locations.

But the GM wasn’t done, and on Aug. 26 he signed UFA centre Matt Hendricks. The 36-year-old had been turned loose by the Oilers and the Jets apparently needed his faceoff skills, hits, penalty killing instincts and leadership. There are arguable points to be made on the effectiveness of some of his traits, but not today.

At $700,000 for one year, it certainly isn’t a contract that is going to hurt the salary cap. However, it did have a number of fans upset because it looked like a return to the dark ages they thought the Jets had left (e.g. Stuart, Thorburn).

It didn’t help that head coach Paul Maurice seemed to be overly exuberant in his praise for a guy making close to the league minimum. That’s the worry — will Maurice use Hendricks like he used Thorburn, preferring him over younger and more talented players?

Knowing Maurice’s fondness for grizzled veterans in certain roles it might be a good bet. I’ll wait to see what happens before jumping in here, but the concern is real.

The Jets recently announced multi-year extensions for Maurice and Cheveldayoff.

It would have been reasonable if owner Mark Chipman had let them head into the season in the final year of their contracts and let the results determine their future.

However, the deals were done earlier this summer. It wasn’t a big surprise as Jets insiders had insisted this would happen since last season.

What was odd was that they didn’t announce the length of the contracts. Last season the salary cap website Cap Friendly had the term listed for all 30 teams coaches (only 14 had their salaries disclosed). Maybe the Jets are starting a new NHL trend on term but I don’t see why the fans shouldn’t know — they pay the bills.

Early Thursday the Jets announced the signing of centre Bryan Little to a six-year, $31.745-million extension. That’s one more piece in the future salary cap puzzle in place. The time to win is now.

I was excited about the Jets in early August and while it’s been tempered a bit since, this team is playoff bound.

How far they go and why is for another day.

Chosen ninth overall by the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and first overall by the WHA’s Houston Aeros in 1977, Scott Campbell has now been drafted by the Winnipeg Free Press to play a new style of game.

Twitter: @NHL_Campbell