Bowness’ playoff-exit rant forgotten

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This article was published 20/09/2023 (717 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rick Bowness says he learned some valuable lessons about the Winnipeg Jets down the stretch and during the Stanley Cup playoffs last season.

But if you were hoping for a big reveal about any smoothing over that might have been required, you’ve come to the wrong place.

As Bowness gets set for his second training camp of his second stint as head coach of an NHL team in Winnipeg, he’s spending no time worrying about what transpired after the Jets were eliminated in Game 5 of an opening-round series with the Vegas Golden Knights. His pointed rant at the podium back in April led to a handful of players expressing their disappointment in those public comments after exit meetings were held.

“That’s done, That’s four-and-a-half months ago. That’s way behind us,” Bowness said Wednesday. “We’ve already addressed all of that. We’ve all moved on from that. That’s four-and-a-half months ago, so that’s not even an issue.”

How were things addressed?

“We talked,” said Bowness. “We put everything on the table and we moved on.”

As for the lessons learned, Bowness kept those to himself, noting he’s hoping how the team plays will ultimately provide the explanation for which folks might be looking.

“There were a couple things that jumped right out at me. But those aren’t things we discuss with you guys,” said Bowness. “Internally, we’ll discuss. Two things, I learned an awful lot about our team at the end of the year. I really did. Which is a good thing, Which is a positive. So, we’ll work from there.”

Knowing the individuals and what makes them tick, along with what they can do on the ice, will also be a benefit.

“I know their tendencies now. From an individual standpoint, I know what I’m looking for when I see their game start to slip a little bit. I’m far better tuned with that,” said Bowness. “In terms of the systems, yeah, it is tweaking. Listen, we’re like 31 other teams. We didn’t win the Stanley Cup. That’s the bottom line. So, we have to tweak a little bit what we do. There’s not going to be significant changes. We still want to be a pressure team. We still want to build on some of the really good things we did last year, which we did.”

The Jets underwent medicals and fitness training Wednesday and will hit the ice Thursday, split into two groups, with skates at the Hockey For All Centre set for 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. They’ll play six exhibition games over the next two weeks, starting Sunday in Edmonton.

Winnipeg has 56 players in camp and must get down to a maximum of 23 prior to the start of the regular season on Oct. 11 in Calgary.

One of the topics Bowness was more than happy to discuss was the line combinations he plans to utilize, at least for the start of training camp.

That includes newcomer Gabriel Vilardi starting on right wing on the top line with Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor, and Cole Perfetti centring the second unit with Nikolaj Ehlers and Nino Niederreiter.

Adam Lowry starts between Alex Iafallo and Mason Appleton, while Rasmus Kupari will centre a fourth line that likely features Vladislav Namestnikov and Morgan Barron.

Why does Perfetti get the first crack at winning the job in the middle after the departure of Pierre-Luc Dubois?

“You look at the sum of Gabe’s most successful times last year, I think was on the wing. I think he can ramp up his production there. Nothing is set in stone or etched in stone, I think you have a good feeling,” said Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff. “We did draft Cole as a centreman and envisioned him as a centreman at some point in time in his tenure. Unfortunately for him, he got derailed a couple of times when like (Scheifele) got hurt and that opportunity might have been there for him last year where he would have got that opportunity to play a bigger role at centre.

“So, I’m excited for him. I think of how hard he worked this summer. I think he believes he has something to prove for sure.”

There will be plenty of others with something to prove, whether they’re battling for the 13th forward job or trying to work their way up the depth chart on defence, such as Declan Chisholm and Ville Heinola.

“It always goes back to (the fact) players will eventually cut themselves, based on how they play,” said Bowness. “So, we’re going to give (Heinola) and we’re going to give (Chisholm), we’re going to give those guys every opportunity to show what they can and then, if they play great like we’re hoping they will, then we’re going to have to make some tough decisions at the end of camp.

“But I’d rather have the tough decisions, than these guys playing themselves right out of here. We weren’t good enough last year. So we want anyone who can show that they can make us a better team, we want to see that in training camp. And if they can make us a better team and we feel really good about where they are, then that’s where we’re going to be and then we’ll deal with that problem at the time.”

When it comes to the priorities for this training camp, Bowness made it clear there will be a focus on conditioning and while he’s happy with the strides taken last season, he knows there are more required for the Jets to reach their goal.

“It’s going to be a tough training camp. There’s going to be a lot of skating,” said Bowness. “Take all the Xs and Os out of the game. You can’t do those things unless you’re in great shape. We’re going to be hard-working, our team’s going to be in great shape. And the way we want to play, with the pressure game as much as we can, you need to be in great shape. So we’re going to have battles, we’re going to have skating. The players got an email (on) the first of September: Prepare for a tough training camp. That’s our goal going into it.”

The Jets are starting off relatively healthy, except for depth forward Wyatt Bongiovanni, who is dealing with a groin injury and won’t be ready to participate when on-ice sessions begin on Thursday.

As far as expectations go, Bowness is aiming higher than when he arrived on the scene.

“Listen, we went into the year out of the playoffs the year before, we made the playoffs. We had to change the culture last year, we changed the culture,” said Bowness. “Our penalty killing was a lot better. Our defensive play was a lot better. We wanted more offence from our defence. We got that. We wanted 40 goals, we got 46. So we did a lot of good things last year that we will build on. That being said, you can’t lose sight of the fact that we didn’t win the Stanley Cup. Like 31 other teams, we’ve got to get better. We’ve got to demand more from ourselves, we’ve got to expect more from ourselves. And that’s what we’re going to be pushing here in training camp.”

Bowness isn’t just demanding more of others, he plans to hold himself to that same standard.

“Listen, I didn’t come in here to win a popularity contest. And I didn’t come in here to worry about my next job. I’m not worried about my next job,” he said. “My job is to keep pushing this group. And that’s what we’re going to do.”

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

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