Patience needed with young Moose

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/02/2021 (1686 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This is likely going to be a very long, short season for the Manitoba Moose, the farm club of the Winnipeg Jets.

I say this after watching them put in a tough night at the office Tuesday at Bell MTS Place, one in which I’d give them an “A” for effort but an “F” for execution in what turned out to be a sloppy 6-2 loss to a deeper, more experienced Toronto Marlies crew that happily took advantage of multiple Manitoba mistakes.

Coach Pascal Vincent doesn’t have a whole lot to work with right now, not with the organization’s most polished young talent having either graduated to the Jets themselves, or currently taking up space on the taxi squad.

No Mason Appleton. No Jansen Harkins. No Kristian Vesalainen. No David Gustafsson. No Sami Niku. No Logan Stanley. No Nelson Nogier. And, to be frank, no real chance of making a lot of noise in the abbreviated AHL season. That’s simply the current cycle they find themselves in.

Expect plenty of growing pains along the way, which Vincent acknowledged in a chat this week. And process over results will become even more important than usual around here.

“We’re going to coach the players individually way more than usual. It’s what’s going to happen when you have a young team,” Vincent told me. “We can’t get too high or too low. We’re going to stay positive the whole year, What we expect from them is ‘Are you working hard, are you trying your best, and are you improving every day?’ If we don’t feel that they’re working hard, then we have a real issue, but that’s not the case so far.”

That’s not to say this group is the hockey equivalent of the Bad News Bears. Far from it. There is some impressive skill, but it is primarily of the unrefined variety.

Cole Perfetti, the highly-touted 19-year-old forward, who would normally be playing in the Ontario Hockey League if it was up and running right now. Ville Heinola, the slick 19-year-old defenceman who now has a total of 14 pro games in North America under his belt. And Dylan Samberg, the fresh-out-of-college pivot who has a total of two games of pro experience, both this week.

Those are the prized trio of prospects right now. And there’s a few others, including 21-year-old rookie blue-liner Declan Chisholm who made his pro debut on Monday, 21-year-old sophomore defenceman Leon Gawakne, 22-year-old goaltender Mikhail Berdin, and the undrafted 22-year-old Kristian Reichel, who was easily the best Manitoba player on the ice in the action I watched Tuesday my press box perch at Bell MTS Place.

That loss came 24 hours after a 3-2 defeat to the same Marlies in which Perfetti and Chisholm both scored their first professional goals. The two teams will meet again Thursday and Friday night.

Rather than how many wins and losses they put up — and I’ll go out on a very small limb here and predict the latter will outnumber the former — the success or failure of this unique campaign will ultimately be judged by how those key players develop, along with the handful of slightly older Jets draft picks such as forwards C.J. Suess and Skyler McKenzie and defencemen Johnny Kovacevic and Luke Green. Other than Suess, all are 23 year old or younger.

The rest of the roster is basically filled with players who are much closer to ECHL-level than NHL-calibre, minor-league free agent signings brought in to fill holes in the lineup. And, unlike past years, there’s not much veteran savvy around to help insulate the kids at the pro level. One such player, forward Dominic Toninato, is currently on the Jets taxi squad. The Moose did get a pair of Vancouver Canucks farmhands sent their way in 26-year-old defenceman Ashton Sautner and 27-year-old centre Tyler Graovac, but that’s about it.

Tuesday’s game illustrated why development at this level is so important. Heinola and Samberg, for example, had one high-event shift which included creating a good scoring chance at one end — Samberg set up Heinola — only for the puck to come down the other way, which Heinola promptly turned over leading directly to a Toronto goal.

Not a big deal right now, but the kind of thing you’d like to try to work out of the system before hitting the NHL stage. And make no mistake: Heinola, Samberg and Perfetti should all have long careers with the Jets, but just as guys like Appleton, Harkins, Niku and Stanley needed plenty of AHL service time, and even Kyle Connor, Josh Morrissey and Connor Hellebuyck before them, they likely will as well.

“Sometimes it’s hard for even the coaches and we have to remind ourselves it’s about development. It’s in our DNA, we want to win every single game, but this year is different. We need to play our guys. Usually the American Hockey League, we’re here to play our young guys, well this year we’re going to play them even more,” said Vincent.

“They’re going to be put into positions that maybe they’re not ready for yet, but we want to build that experience and help them understand why there’s a failure and how we can help them get better eventually. It’s all about putting them on the ice and pushing them to get better and evaluating. It’s going to be like this for 34 games now.”

It helps, of course, when there’s ultimately an organization payoff, as was the case last year when Harkins finally graduated to the big leagues and never looked back, with Stanley taking a massive step forward this season

Watching Reichel bust his tail every single shift the way Harkins always did — including an early first-period one where he stole the puck from a Marlies defender and scored a goal based purely on hustle — is the kind of thing that gives a coach hope for the future, regardless of the final result.

“He’s only going to get better,” Vincent said of the undrafted Reichel, who was on an AHL-deal with the Moose last year, finished off strong and earned himself his first NHL deal (a two-way pact) with the Jets last off-season.

“The way he works and the way he approaches the games, I think he’s going to be a good player for a long time. He’s giving himself a chance, not only to stay in the lineup but eventually maybe to get a look (with the Jets), maybe in a year, maybe in two years.”

As always, patience at this level is a virtue. And that’s going to be especially true on the farm this season.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg