New combo sparks Jets’ offence

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This article was published 23/10/2013 (4367 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There were a lot of good signs on Tuesday night, Jets coach Claude Noel thought, a lot of encouraging things in the wake of a spirited shootout loss.

For instance, there were the lines, rejigged a little this time, as Noel looked to shake things up after Sunday’s mucky play. The change seemed to spark some offence from some frustrated players.

“I think, from that standpoint, it was good,” Noel said. “Guys got on the board, made some good plays. I think it’s good for our guys, because we’re analyzed on when things don’t go well… for me, you gotta give ’em some credit.”

That shuffle was how Evander Kane and Mark Scheifele found themselves, looking right to Blake Wheeler, split on Tuesday night from his longtime centre, Bryan Little. That was the line that started the night and, although they’d only had one practice with that combination, it seemed to work.

“It felt good,” Scheifele said about having Wheeler on the side where Devin Setoguchi used to be. “He’s obviously an unbelievable player. He’s fast, he’s around the puck. It was definitely really good to play with him… I thought we generated a lot of offence.”

There are numbers to gauge the success of that line, and then there is the eye test. That latter bit goes like this: Blake Wheeler, who somehow rendered his 6-5 frame invisible for much of this early going, finally looked himself on Tuesday. He was skating, again. He prowled the offensive zone, made seven shot attempts and found some clever little plays with Scheifele.

“I think we were moving,” Wheeler said. “What started it off was, we were gaining possession in the offensive zone, and we were moving, and moving the puck and distributing it. From there, I think we were able to slash, and penetrate a little bit.”

So when Wheeler tied the game in the second period with a purposeful tip on a Kane shot from south of the faceoff circle, his second of the year seemed not only deserved but long overdue. He’d been waiting for it for so long.

“First shift, Kaner hit me backdoor,” Wheeler recalled.

“We didn’t quite connect, but you do little things like that and it kind of gets the blood pumping a little bit more, and you get a little bit more excited and more scoring chances are quick to follow.”

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When the scoring chances followed, the ice time followed, too. Noel rewarded the Kane-Scheifele-Wheeler line with big-time minutes. The three led all Jets forwards in ice time, with Kane taking a monster 28:41 and Wheeler wrapping up at 21:25. Scheifele, meanwhile, clocked in at 22:40 for the whole shebang, and soared past his season high before regulation was over.

They better get used to it. After an encouraging performance from the team, the Jets line chef isn’t tempted to go mixing again.

“I think they looked like they got a little bit of chemistry, for not having played together for some time,” Noel said. “I didn’t mind a lot of the lines… I didn’t have any real problems with trying to juggle lines, it wasn’t something I was thinking about.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.