Jets enjoying success as Connor’s game matures

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This article was published 05/11/2024 (337 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

His eye is black and blue, and Winnipeg Jets forward Kyle Connor admits he was seeing red after taking a shot to the head from Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov last Sunday, which cost him the remainder of the game.

“They pulled me off right away for the concussion protocol,” Connor said Tuesday morning as he spoke about the play for the first time, a big shiner presenting a visual reminder to all.

“Obviously every player doesn’t want to miss any time. But I’m glad to have a protocol like that, someone up top looking out for us even when I’m pissed off.”

Kucherov wasn’t penalized for the hit, which caused Connor’s face to strike the helmet of Lightning defenceman Erik Cernak during the third period of the 7-4 victory for the Jets.

Winnipeg’s top scorer, who missed nearly two months last year after Anaheim’s Ryan Strome took him out with a knee-on-knee hit, opted to bite his tongue when asked for his take.

“I don’t want to get into whether it was dirty or not,” said Connor. “I’ve watched it a couple times but you guys can have your interpretation on that.”

Connor was eventually cleared by doctors, but it was too late to return to action.

Th 27-year-old winger isn’t just leading the way on the ice, but showing plenty of growth and maturity in various ways off of it. Take the way he responded to a Free Press question about how his team seems to have embraced the importance of playing solid defence while clearly not sacrificing anything offensively.

It’s how all NHL coaches want their teams to play — but very few do it on a consistent basis.

“It’s not something that happened overnight. It’s something that we worked on for years now,” said Connor, pulling back the curtain to reveal how core players such as himself have met with management multiple times to discuss what needs to happen to get better.

“That’s been the main focus. How can we get better as a group and improve? We know we have a championship team in this group,” Connor continued.

“It’s not always a straight line to the top. You’ve got to learn, you’ve got to develop. You’re kind of seeing that here. It’s a pretty motivated group. I think Arnie (coach Scott Arniel) does a good job with not letting us get happy with where we’re at.”

FIGHTING WORDS: There used to be a time, including back when Arniel was still lacing up the skates, where seeing a fight (or two, or three, or more) in every game was expected.

Those days are long gone, as proven by the fact Logan Stanley’s bout with Zemgus Girgensons on Sunday afternoon was Winnipeg’s first of the season.

Arniel said Tuesday he’s glad the so-called staged scraps have mostly disappeared from the game.

“I’m not big on that, obviously, unless it’s there’s a reason for and a big reason for it,” he said.

However, a heat-of-the-moment tilt, such as the one that occurred after Stanley threw a huge, clean hit on Luke Glendenning, will likely always have a place in the sport.

“This is still is a fast game, and it’s a heavy game at times, and things are going to happen,” said Arniel.

“And whether you’re sticking up for a teammate, which the Tampa forward tried to do and or it’s Stan setting the tone by coming out early in that period and kind of playing the game that he has to play. We’ve talked about him before that. I want him to be a pest. I want him to be a bully.”

PUT ME IN COACH: There also used to be a time, as recently as last season, that Cole Perfetti likely would have been stapled to the bench in the waning minutes of a close game.

Not anymore, as proven by the fact Arniel had the young forward out with his team trying to hold off the Lightning, who had pulled their goaltender for an extra attacker. Perfetti repaid that trust by icing the victory with an empty-net goal.

“That’s what you strive for. You want to be a guy that can be played in all situations and I’m trying to work towards that and improve all aspects of my game to be trusted everywhere,” Perfetti said Tuesday.

“Hopefully, over time, I can gain more and more. It’s been a work in progress. But slowly, hopefully gaining trust a little bit more.”

The goal was most welcome for Perfetti, who had hit three posts and crossbars in the prior two games.

“Sometimes, the hockey gods are funny, eh? They will reward you with an empty-netter,” he said.

“Obviously, you want to see the puck go in the net. Just a couple of inches off or whatever it is. The fact that you’re getting good looks and beating goalies clean is the main thing that I take away from that. You’re doing something right to get those opportunities. Eventually, the puck is going to go in for you and you just got to stick with it.”

PP1 VS PP2: It’s safe to say a friendly competition is developing between Winnipeg’s two power-play units.

The Jets had scored a league-leading 15 PP goals heading into action against Utah, with the top group (Connor, Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers, Gabe Vilardi and Josh Morrissey) accounting for eight of them and the second group scoring seven.

“We are both finding success,” said Perfetti, who is on the second unit along with Nino Niederreiter, Alex Iafallo, Vlad Namestnikov and Neal Pionk.

“You’ve seen that in multiple games where if our unit doesn’t score, the first unit will come out and get a big one for us and vice versa. It’s really important to have two threats on the power play and we don’t give any team any breaks on the penalty kill.”

MELLOW YELLOW: Defenceman Ville Heinola (ankle surgery) and forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan (broken foot) are now skating with the main group wearing yellow non-contact jerseys, but Arniel said there’s still no timeline for a return.

“Those yellow shirts may be on for a while,” he said.

“The biggest thing is they can’t get hit with pucks. So they can do almost all the drills, but once it gets into something where there’s live fire and they can get hit, because it’s both their feet there, we’ll just stay away from anything like that. And then they’ll get their conditioning.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

X: @mikemcintyrewpg