Morrissey is making magnificence mundane

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This article was published 25/02/2024 (589 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Have yourself a week, Josh Morrissey.

The Winnipeg Jets defenceman, who posted career offensive highs last season and finished fifth in Norris Trophy voting, is heating up at just the right time.

An assist on Monday in Calgary. Two more on Tuesday against Minnesota. Three on Friday in Chicago, including setting up Kyle Connor’s overtime winner. And then deja vu all over again Sunday, with three more including a perfect pass that led to Connor’s game-ending dagger against the Arizona Coyotes.

Four games. Seven days. Nine helpers. Not too shabby.

“Like I’ve always said, I get to play with great guys here. You get opportunities to be on the ice in key situations, you’re going to get rewarded,” Morrissey told the Free Press following his latest performance.

“I felt, honestly, there’s been a lot of times this year, especially from Christmas to the bye week (in late January), I was playing really well and I couldn’t buy a point. Sometimes it comes in bunches.”

Morrissey, 28, is now up to 44 points (seven goals, 37 assists) in 56 games this year. That puts him eighth-overall in scoring among NHL defencemen while anchoring the league’s stingiest squad in terms of goals against.

“He’s just been fantastic,” Jets centre Mark Scheifele said of Morrissey.

“He’s making a lot of great plays. He’s great in the D-zone, he cuts things off quick and gets it going the other way. A lot of unheralded plays that he’s making from his own end that not a lot people will see. He’s making a lot of great plays all over the ice.”

One of those great plays came just 2:06 into the game Sunday, when Morrissey picked up the puck behind his own net, skated with it to centre ice and fired a perfect dump-in off the right corner boards that bounced right to a streaking Scheifele, who picked it up perfectly and deked out Coyotes goaltender Connor Ingram to give the home team a 1-0 lead.

“We kind of made eye contact a little bit, so I think he kind of knew. I don’t know if he knew that it was going to work out that well, but obviously a very, very cagey play by him,” said Scheifele.

Later in the frame, Morrissey helped set up Gabe Vilardi’s power play marker that made it 3-1 Winnipeg at the time.

“Just how smart he is. Just his skating. It gets him out of trouble,” Vilardi said when asked what’s impressed him most about Morrissey.

“He’s able to get in the rush so much and create offensively and he’s so smart offensively. It’s like having another forward out there with you. When he’s on the ice, he’s always looking to jump. It’s good. You need your D to create offensively in this league. His skating is so good he’s able to do it a lot and get back and help out defensively as well because he’s so good and so smooth out there.”

Morrissey capped off another productive night with his beautiful overtime feed on a three-on-one rush with Scheifele and Connor.

“We’ve played a ton of three-on-three together through the years,” Morrissey said of the chemistry he shares with the dynamic duo.

“You get in that situation where Scheif and KC were both on their one-timer side. I’m coming up late, they drop it to me and I’m going to have a one-timer guy beside me. They had a forward, (Barrett) Hayton, who was playing D, so he’s probably not as comfortable there.”

As Morrissey went on to explain, he figured Hayton would anticipate a pass to Connor.

“From defending three-on-ones, I know that sometimes you try and just make a sort of guess defensively where he’s gonna go. A lot of times I think they would see that me as a lefty, I’m gonna go to KC probably,” said Morrissey.

“But he didn’t jump. I just tried to make that pass in the right spot, and he made a great shot and the goalie couldn’t get there in time. One-timer is a nice situation to have with those guys for sure.”

Morrissey, like many of his teammates, was stuck in a bit of an offensive rut recently, as the Jets scored just nine goals over an eight-game span prior. However they now have 20 goals over the last five games, with eight of them coming on a power play that’s quickly gone from ice cold to scorching hot

“It’s been nice to get the power play going, and I think it translates into the five-on-five for feeling a little bit better with the puck,” said Morrissey.

With just 26 regular-season games remaining and, Morrissey hopes, a long and successful playoff run on tap this spring, the plan is to not only keep it going, but find another level or two.

“For us to be in a position where we’re winning a lot of games and in a race for the division, it’s obviously a ton of fun to come to the rink,” said Morrissey.

“There’s some things we need to clean up in our game right now, and we want to be peaking at the right time and keep pushing forward to pull ourselves to the highest standard possible. But the fact we’re finding ways to win games, that’s all that matters in this league. It’s been a lot of fun. Hopefully we can really build and do something special this year.”