Jets’ locker-room humming along at steady, positive pace

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This article was published 22/11/2014 (4039 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They’re onto something that fits, Jets’ players say about their evolving game preparation in the first quarter of the 2014-15 NHL season.

It has shown itself in better starts this season. The team has allowed just 10 first-period goals in 18 games after giving up five in its three-game opening weekend.

The minutes and hours leading up to puck drop have become more consistent, more predictable in the locker room, a stability that has helped the team, centre Bryan Little said.

“Obviously some guys are going to be talkers in the dressing room, some guys are more quiet,” he said. “But sometimes before it felt like it was inconsistent and it kind of showed in our game. You’d come in here some nights and it’d be dead quiet. And you’d come in here some nights and everyone would be in a good mood, talking.

“Right now it seems like we’ve found that preparation where it’s the exact same every day. Whether it’s going good or going bad, we’d come in here with the same attitude and same mood and everyone’s talking and feeling good. We just have to keep that rolling.”

Consistency in these areas will be a must going forward, Little said.

“That’s been something that in the last month we’ve taken some steps on,” he said. “I think in the past if we won a couple, we’d get a bit too proud of ourselves and too high and when we lost a couple we’d get too down on ourselves. Right now, we seem to have found that steady balance… staying hungry.”

Veteran centre Jim Slater said much has changed in this area since Paul Maurice became the team’s coach last January.

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“We’ve always done video and whiteboard stuff,” Slater said. “There’s some specifics, but those will stay in the locker-room here… but it’s just little things. You get guys talking before games, just talking about the game and getting ready for it. That’s the biggest thing, all being in here together and knowing what’s important.”

Captain Andrew Ladd echoed the fact the locker-room is more consistent in its preparation this season. It’s about better communication off the ice, he said. And it has to carry over onto the ice as well.

“I think that’s the biggest area we can get better at,” he said. “Communication makes such a difference in your own end if you have guys talking to you and letting you know from their vantage point what you can do. That helps out.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca