Jets testing rest and recovery techniques

By: Tim Campbell Posted: 11:38 AM CDT Saturday, Apr. 2, 2016

Though they remain cryptic and somewhat secretive as to what they’re actually doing, the Winnipeg Jets are using the back end of this out-of-the-playoffs season to refine and improve one element of their operation.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/04/2016 (3475 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The team is focused on enhancing its rest and recovery routines and has been adopting various unspecified testing and evaluation it hopes will provide benefits.

The subject came up again Friday when Jets coach Paul Maurice was asked why, at this point of a disappointing season, he chose not to hold a practice Thursday.

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Chicago's Brandon Mashinter (53) and Dale Weise (25) celebrate Mashinter's goal against Winnipeg goaltender Ondrej Pavelec. — JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS Chicago's Brandon Mashinter (53) and Dale Weise (25) celebrate Mashinter's goal against Winnipeg goaltender Ondrej Pavelec.

“We’ve never seen a schedule like this,” the coach said. “I’ve never seen one with six straight weeks of playing every other night with a back-to-back in there.”

Maurice has previously lamented this element of the Jets’ schedule, that the NHL didn’t build a single two-day span between games for Winnipeg in March or April.

“We have an opportunity right now… I think it’s going to get worse, not better,” the coach said of the schedule. “You take another five days out of the schedule (next season, between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28) with the all-star accommodation that was made and we’ve got a find a way (because), we’re going to see more of this, not less of it, with our flights.”

The NHL has agreed to give each of the 30 teams a five-day break somewhere between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28, 2017, not counting all-star-break days.

“So we have to put some tools in place or try some things now that we might be able to use now when we’re in a high-stress environment,” Maurice said. “Yesterday we did that, and we’re doing a bunch of different things. Some of it started at the beginning of the year and some of it’s full-on now, where we’re doing it every day… and tests we’re doing on players. Some of them are subjective, some of them, you can quantify them. That’s why we did it. We had a plan for yesterday and implemented it.”

Maurice said the knowledge gained by these evaluations is for the long term.

“I’m not even sure the payoff will even be necessarily seen tonight,” he said Friday. “We’ll monitor a bunch of different things, and we’re going to get into this again. We’re going to get into it when there’s a lot on the line for what we’re doing and we want to have a far better handle on whether it’s the best thing for our team to be on the ice… or is it to do this.

“It’s an unusual opportunity that you’re given in a dark time to try to do some things you might be able to use that could give you a real benefit in the future.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Little could suit up again this season

Centre Bryan Little, who missed his 21st straight game Friday night, is still an option to play before the regular season is over next Saturday.

Little suffered a compressed fracture of his vertebrae Feb. 18 in Tampa but has recovered quickly in the last few weeks. He has skated twice now in a regular practice, cleared for full contact.

Maurice said Friday the mental element of Little’s recovery could play a factor as to whether the veteran centre plays in the next week.

“That would probably be the thing we’re gauging because the easiest thing to do would be, ‘See you in September,’” Maurice said. “Through experience with these kinds of players, if they feel they really they need that game and the doctors are saying there’s no reason why he can’t play and if we feel his conditioning is good, that would be the only reason.

“But he will not be going back into that game if there’s even a remote question that he’s not at the level he needs to be.”

Little told the Free Press Wednesday he was feeling great and was very close to being sure he could and should play again this season.