D-man reaffirms plan to return to school despite Jets opportunity

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This article was published 26/06/2019 (2264 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dylan Samberg hasn’t changed his mind, despite an opportunity created by the uncertainty of the Winnipeg Jets’ defensive corps.

One of the team’s top blue-line prospects told the Free Press two months ago he had committed to return to the University of Minnesota (Duluth) this fall, postponing the start of his career with the NHL organization. 

The 6-4, 215-pound defenceman reiterated that sentiment Wednesday, following the second day of on-ice work at Winnipeg’s development camp. He isn’t being swayed to sign a pro deal just because the club’s back end is in a state of flux, and is eager to try to help the Bulldogs win a third consecutive U.S. college championship.

“Yeah, (the Jets) came down and talked to me and went over everything, but I thought I wanted to go back and finish another year of school before I made another decision,” said Samberg, 20. “I want to be fully prepared when I come in here. I also really wanted to get schooling done — that’s really important to me and my family. I felt that one year wouldn’t hurt me.”

The timing isn’t right, he said.

“Obviously, that’s in the back of your mind, but my main focus is next year and trying to make sure I can play to the best of my ability and to push myself to eventually — when the time comes — I can jump in here and make sure I’m at my best,” said Samberg, the Jets’ second-round pick in the 2017 NHL draft.

Winnipeg’s group of rearguards is about to undergo a major renovation. Jacob Trouba was dealt to the New York Rangers; neither Nathan Beaulieu nor Joe Morrow received qualifying offers from the Jets, making them unrestricted free agents; and Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot, both UFAs, could each have new homes by Monday.

Josh Morrissey, Dustin Byfuglien, Dmitry Kulikov and newcomer Neal Pionk comprise the likely “top four,” while Sami Niku, Tucker Poolman and Nelson Nogier fill out a relatively thin group. Samberg wouldn’t be a shoo-in, but he’d definitely be in the mix.

This is the only look Jets’ brass has at Hermantown, Minn., product — as an NCAA player, he’s ineligible to participate at Jets training camp in September.

“(This is) as close as we can get him to the Jets main camp. Because of the rules, we can’t have him go through that. We’d love to, obviously. We’re really excited about him as a player,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice said. “He looks like he’s more powerful this year. But he gets to be around us, make contact with us, start to learn some of the systems, start to learn some of the things we do.

“For all of them, the elite players that are out there or the brand-new guys that are going to take years to develop, it’s one more repetition of all things. On the ice, the interactions with the coaches, the trainers, the city of Winnipeg. It’s our introduction to the Jet way of life.”

Samberg isn’t heralded for his offensive output, even though he increased his numbers last season, scoring seven goals (six more than his freshman year) and adding 12 assists in 39 games. He’s physical and responsible, and takes great pride in turning back the best players opponents have to offer.

“Just kind of try and do your job. Last year, I played with (L.A. Kings draft choice) Mikey (Anderson) and we had that good shut-down role. The coach relied on us a lot — that helped our confidence as well,” he said. “Throughout the year, he relied on us to play more minutes.”

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Maurice and his coaching staff — Charlie Huddy, Jamie Kompon, Todd Woodcroft and Wade Flaherty — are running many of the drills this week.

Maurice said he hasn’t lost any sleep over the questions marks that surround his defence. 

“That’s standard. Rarely do you get your board up at the end of the season and say, ‘That’s my board coming back.’ There’s always a lot of turnover,” he said. “There are bigger-name pieces on that turnover now. Jake (Trouba’s) moved on, we like the defenceman (Pionk) an awful lot that we got back. What happens with the rest of the guys that are either UFAs or RFAs, we’ll see.

“Maybe there’s a real chance our team looks fairly close to the team from last year, so that’s still ahead of us. We don’t have (defensive) pairings set at the end of June, but we’ll get to that by training camp.

“There’ll be a lot of really, really good names on our board. We have a good team. We may, in fact, get younger again, if that’s possible. But we’re still going to put a really good team on the ice.” 

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell