Big game for Little

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This article was published 29/11/2016 (3282 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A few hours prior to the puck being dropped Tuesday night, Bryan Little was sure he’d have to lean on his Winnipeg Jets teammates in his first game back after being shelved for 23 due to injury.

What he didn’t expect was being thrown back into what’s worked best in the past: the head coach leaning heavily on the 29-year-old veteran centre.

“I didn’t think I would play as much as I did tonight, but we had a guy down,” Little said. “Those first few shifts, I just felt that I let all my energy out.

“It was built up and I was really excited and anxious to get playing. I felt unbelievable those first few shifts and got tired as the game went on.”

Little played 20:09 total — his ice time likely increased by a Marko Dano upper-body injury in the first period — including 3:12 on the power play and 1:26 on the penalty kill. He was also trusted to help the Jets defend a one-goal lead with the New Jersey Devils’ net empty in the final minute of a 3-2 win at the MTS Centre.

“It was mentioned to me before the game that they might try to manage my minutes a bit,” Little said. “The unexpected happened, we lost a guy and that kind of went out the window.

“It was good to get that first one out of the way and in the way the we did it and won. I had a couple good chances and got the confidence going, so it was good.”

Little’s season came to a halt just as quickly as it started in the first game of the season in October.

A first-period injury in the Jets’ opener against the Carolina Hurricanes after just 2:48 of ice time — a measly four shifts — resulted in a near-two-month layoff for a player who also missed the final 25 games of the 2015-16 season with a fractured vertebrae.

In all, the man who is just now starting his 10th NHL campaign missed 48 of the Jets’ last 49 games.

“Just getting back into the routine today, having a nap and getting a pre-game skate, just being around the guys is definitely nice,” he said. “It feels like it’s been a really long time.”

His presence on the ice was a sight for sore eyes for teammate Blake Wheeler.

“I thought he was excellent, better than I expected,” he said. “That first shift, I kicked one to him in the D-zone and he took off like a bat outta hell. He was flying tonight.

“It’s pretty exciting to have him back in the lineup. He did a lot of great things. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for us,” Wheeler said.

“I thought he did a great job kind of controlling those (emotions). He was Bryan Little, it was great to see.

For Jets head coach Paul Maurice, managing the game behind the bench felt a little lighter than it has over the past two months.

He said he never intended to rein in Little.  

“Right from the start of the game he looked comfortable,” Maurice said. “We weren’t trying to hold him (back). We weren’t trying to protect him or his ice time. We had to double-shift him once after Marko went down.

“(Having Little back) changes everything. It changes the way you can run your bench. It changes your matchups with Adam’s (Lowry) line playing as well defensively as it can, you don’t have to think four-line rotations ahead.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @scottbilleck