Pionk aiming to up his game

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This article was published 10/04/2023 (882 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Neal Pionk isn’t a man of many words, the kind of professional athlete who prefers to let his play do the talking for him.

The Winnipeg Jets defenceman isn’t all that interested in the outside noise, either. If he were, the Minnesota native likely wouldn’t appreciate some of what is being said about him.

Indeed, Pionk has been a bit of a lightning rod for criticism among fans this season, which comes after a 2021-22 campaign that also seemed to fall short of expectations for the 27-year-old. His performance from game to game this year has been well documented, by both the eye test and the underlying numbers, neither of which are all that favourable to the Jets veteran blue-liner.

Still, none of that has fazed Pionk, who in the past has often been his own harshest critic, always taking the approach that he can give more. At the end of last season, after the Jets missed the playoffs by 10 points, he said he felt embarrassed about his performance, picking apart nearly every aspect of his game before vowing to get better over the summer.

He wasn’t about to carve that deep when asked to assess his current season, but he also wasn’t patting himself on the back.

“I feel like it’s been a good year but there’s always room for improvement, and no matter how I perform I’ll probably say that,” Pionk told the Free Press following morning skate Monday, ahead of a 6-2 home win over the San Jose Sharks. “If you take a breath, someone is going to pass you. Won’t be a great year until we make the playoffs, but there are areas I can always improve on.”

While Pionk’s season as a whole can be viewed as an up-and-down affair, there’s no denying he’s playing some of his best hockey right now. And with just a pair of games before the end of the regular season, with the Jets clinging to that final wildcard spot in the Western Conference, Winnipeg needs Pionk to continue elevating his play.

Pionk has been playing a more physical brand of the game, one closer to the style he first welcomed fans with shortly after being acquired in a trade with the New York Rangers that sent Jacob Trouba the other way. He’s also chipping in more goals than he ever has, registering a career-high 10 through 79 games, though his combined 32 points is still short of the 45 he collected in his first season in Winnipeg back in 2019-20.

Just moments into the third period in a critical tilt against the Nashville Predators on Saturday, Pionk took a pass from Nikolaj Ehlers in the slot before firing it high past the blocker of Juuse Saros to secure a 2-0 win. He also provided the screen on Mark Scheifele’s game-opening goal, displaying the kind of impact his teammates and coaches have come to expect from him.

“He definitely has some offence to his game. That was a huge goal for us (against the Predators). Any time it’s a 1-0 game, one break goes against you or one call and all of a sudden, it’s tied. He showed up in the big moment,” Jets centre Adam Lowry said. “He battles hard. He’s not the biggest guy, but he’s always up there near the team lead in hits and blocked shots. He’ll put his body on the line for us and he battles at both ends of the rink. You couldn’t ask for much more from a guy on your team.”

Pionk, who stands six feet and weighs 185 pounds, leads the Jets in blocked shots, with 123, four ahead of Josh Morrissey and 30 more than he registered last season. His 168 hits are second only to Brenden Dillon, who paces the Jets with 196.

Asked about the increase in blocked shots this year, Pionk had few answers. He thinks it might be because he’s played more penalty kill than he’s used to, as he’s already on the club’s second power play unit, or perhaps it’s having to recover from a broken play created by he or one of his teammates.

As for the jump in goals — his previous high was six, which he recorded twice — Pionk said he spent a lot of time over the summer working on his shot. He also understands if the Jets are going to do any damage in the playoffs, assuming they get there, it’s going to require the club’s defencemen chipping in on the scoreboard.

“I worked on changing the angle. It’s something that the best forwards in the league do really well, they pull it under your stick or under your skates and shoot it, and as D-men, we’re never really looking at that because we’re looking to just get it on net. But when you’re in close, you kind of have to pull and drag it, pull it around a defenceman, change the angle of the goal, make him move just a little bit,” Pionk said. “We know how playoff hockey is, they shut down all the forwards and the defence got to be that second wave of offence. The complementary scoring or the depth scoring, it’s not always the top guys scoring in the playoffs and the teams that go far are going to have defencemen score, they’re going to have depth guys score and that’s what we’re looking to do.”

Jets head coach Rick Bowness is a big fan of Pionk’s shot and he’s been trying to encourage him to use it more. Bowness has also liked a lot of what he’s been getting from Pionk, particularly while playing the right side on the second pairing with Dillon.

The Jets coach has been reluctant to confirm whether Pionk has been dealing with a nagging injury, much like he did for a majority of last season, though he broached the subject on Monday. But Bowness also wasn’t about to let Pionk off the hook, either

“There was a time that he was a little banged up and there was a time he wasn’t playing well. It’s a little bit of both. You play 82 games you’re going to have those spells when you’re not playing well. You’re going to have those spells when you’re playing a little banged up,” Bowness said. “You give him full marks. One thing about Neal is he’s coachable. So, it’s “Neal, we’re struggling a little bit here, let’s clean these things up,’ and he fixes it right away. He’s not stubborn about those things. He has a very honest appraisal of his game.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton