Young forward Gustafsson getting legs under him

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This article was published 26/01/2021 (1685 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

David Gustafsson made his 2021 debut for the Winnipeg Jets in a 4-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers Sunday night.

Gustafsson, a 20-year-old forward the Jets drafted late in the second round, 60th overall, in the 2018 NHL draft, logged just 4:39 of ice time and had one shot playing on the fourth line. Though his impact wasn’t significant, the fact that he was on the ice was.

He suffered a lower-body injury in December while playing on loan in Sweden, forcing him to miss parts of Jets training camp and delaying his return to the lineup.

“It’s always difficult when you have an injury and especially at the start of season and especially during training camp, because you want to get in and like, show the coach that you want to play on the team. But I feel like now when it’s all healed up and I’ve have a good chance to show that I’m supposed to play here,” Gustafsson said after the Jets’ morning skate Tuesday, ahead of their rematch against the Oilers. He finished minus-1 with 6:07 of ice time in the 6-4 victory for the Jets.

“Nice to finally be out there and play with the guys. I feel like we got a good thing going there with the line and it felt like a good game.”

Gustafsson is centring a trio that includes fellow second-year player Jansen Harkins and Trevor Lewis, a veteran of 12 years in the NHL, all with the L.A. Kings, including two Stanley Cup championships. He said it’s a nice blend of players, and the experience of Lewis has certainly been beneficial.

“Whenever he talks to you and helps you out it makes you a lot more calm during the game. Because sometimes we young guys can get a little too fired up and he helps a lot and it just gives you confidence whenever he’s complimenting you or whenever he says something else you got to do,” Gustafsson said.

NO. 99 TURNS 60: With Wayne Gretzky turning 60 years old on Tuesday, Jets head coach Paul Maurice shared this little story about coaching against The Great One.

“Coached against him, he was playing for St. Louis (1995-96) and he scored a goal against us one night that still bothers me. I’m not going to mention the goalie’s name, like if it was Jason Muzzatti or not, and we’re finally going to beat St. Louis in St. Louis and he comes down the wing and he might be the only guy in the zone and I think his butt was probably touching the back wall at the hash marks and he shot it in the middle of the net. And I had to watch that thing about 50 times to figure out how the puck went in,” Maurice said. “There’s just those guys, they saw things that nobody else saw. Somehow he found a hole in the middle of the net and it ended up we lost the game 5-4.”

FITTING IN: With all the commotion around the Patrik Laine trade and the fact the star winger wanted out of Winnipeg, the Free Press asked Maurice what a young player can do to endear himself to the head coach. Maurice was forthright with his answer.

“Just be a good teammate… One of the critical pieces to being a young player is just kind of coming in and fitting into that room. So your room has a culture and a character and so does your team, a style of play. Your leaders do and you want to try and have your young players emulate your leaders. As the coach, you’ve picked your leaders. You’ve looked at the men in your room and thought these are the people we would like to have our young players emulate — how they train, how they train on their off days, how they approach the game. So, you have a belief system then in place between your leadership and yourself and then you want the young players to come in and emulate those leaders that you have in the room. So that it’s kind of the bond that they create with each other. You’ve got young guys that come in and will look at your top-end guys and say, ‘I’m going to play like them, I’m going to practise like them’ and they immediately get absorbed into the group.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton