A fleet transformed

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/10/2017 (2902 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let’s hop in the time machine and program the date to Oct. 9, 2011.

Winnipeg is buzzing over the return of the NHL, and the puck is about to drop on the inaugural season of the Jets 2.0 at the barn on Portage Avenue.

The Montreal Canadiens are the visitors as Bryan Little, Blake Wheeler, Andrew Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien and Toby Enstrom line up for the opening faceoff. A tall, slender teen named Mark Scheifele is on the bench during the national anthem and will make his NHL debut just 3:05 into the first period.

Ondrej Pavelec guards the net, offering the last line of protection against the Habs.

There’s great hope surrounding the former Atlanta Thrashers — an eclectic mix of veterans, including two with Stanley Cup rings, and a reasonable crop of talented youngsters. Much of that initial excitement is little more than misguided, blind faith in a team that possesses a few key pieces, but is severely short on roster depth and the prospects cupboard is nearly bare.

The Montreal Canadiens bring a shot of reality to the thunderous, electrified celebration at the MTS Centre that historic Sunday afternoon, beating the Jets 5-1.

Credit the transplanted group for finishing the season with a respectable 37-35-10 record in the Southeast Division, rocking it at home at 23-13-5.

A look at the roster today, on the eve of the 2017-18 campaign, shows just how far the team has come after six seasons fraught with growing pains, inconsistent play and post-season absences.

Wheeler, Little, Byfuglien, Enstrom and Scheifele are the only originals left, and endure as cornerstones of the hockey club.

Wheeler owns the captaincy and is regarded as one of the league’s premier power forwards, Scheifele, the organization’s first guinea pig for its draft-and develop experiment, has progressed into an elite middle man, while Little remains a highly regarded two-way centre.

Byfuglien is gargantuan and one of the most offensively skilled blue-liners in hockey, yet is still prone to ill-timed blunders that drive fans crazy. Enstrom remains the small, steady puck-moving defenceman who has difficulty staying healthy.

Added by way of the NHL Draft in recent years are last year’s rookie sensation, born-to-score right-winger Patrik Laine (who fired 36 goals last season and netted five in this year’s seven-game pre-season slate), exhilarating left-winger Nikolaj Ehlers, top-notch defencemen Jacob Trouba and Josh Morrissey and much-maligned goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who has had a solid training camp this fall. Acquired via trade is blue-liner and former NHL rookie of the year Tyler Myers, while goalie Steve Mason, forward Mathieu Perreault and defenceman Dmitry Kulikov are aboard because of free agency.

No significant drop-off in offensive production is expected this season but the club’s success will come down to its ability to defend.

Assistant coach Charlie Huddy, the longest-serving member of the Jets bench staff, said he’ll work with the finest group of blue-liners the team has assembled in its short history in Winnipeg.

“We have eight or nine guys who can play in the NHL,” he said. “We have great depth and it’s fun to be able to work with those guys because they all want to get better.”

Beyond the regulars on the back end, East Grand Forks, Minn., product Tucker Poolman looks NHL-ready now, but could begin the season with the Manitoba Moose, while Sami Niku and Nelson Nogier will play with the AHL club. The Jets are also high on recent draft selections Dylan Samberg, Jonathan Kovacevic and Leon Gawanke, and haven’t given up on Logan Stanley.

The prospects pantry is stocked up front; forwards Kyle Connor, Jack Roslovic and Brendan Lemieux are knocking on the door, and Jansen Harkins and Kristian Vesalainen will likely be pushing for employment in a year or two.

There is legitimate reason for optimism and lofty goals. And a lot of the pressure is coming from inside the locker room.

The captain was asked recently how he views transformation since 2011.

“I think talent-wise we’ve come a fair ways,” Wheeler says. “It’s tough, because you inherit a group of guys and maybe not necessarily the direction that they wanted to go. So it took time to assemble where we’re at today.

“There were some really good hockey players on that team, but over time you start to accumulate talent and a new team starts to take shape, more of what they were trying to build.”

Ladd and Pavelec were considered fundamental pieces in the future success of the team, which had transferred that spring from the hockey wasteland of Atlanta, the only city to lose two franchises in the NHL’s post-1967 expansion history.

Both players have since taken their leave. Ladd was dealt to Chicago near the 2015-16 trade deadline, while Pavelec earned most of his US$4.7 million last season playing with the Moose before he accepted a one-year deal in the summer with the New York Rangers at a reduced rate.

The rest of that cast of characters from the original team, including head coach Claude Noel, left town a while ago. Noel was turfed in January 2014 after the team suffered uninspired losses to Tampa and Columbus, falling to 19-23-5 and 10 points back of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

He was replaced by current head coach Paul Maurice.

Little said he ignored rumours of relocation during the 2010-11 season in Atlanta but was shocked when the news of the move to Winnipeg was officially announced.

He said the group that headed north was far from being a powerhouse.

“We had a weird mixture. We were definitely an older team than we have now, a lot of guys that had been around the league, and we had struggled the last few years in Atlanta to find any kind of positives,” he recalls. “Guys were in and out (of the lineup), coaches were in and out and we didn’t have a lot of prospects and depth like we do now.

“The guys on the team knew it would be a struggle (in Winnipeg), but I think we did even better than we probably should have and our home record was one of the best in the league because it was so new and exciting and the fans were going crazy every night. That definitely gave us a lift. But we didn’t have anywhere close to the talent we have now.”

One of the big names on that squad, Nik Antropov — who scored the club’s first-ever goal on that opening Sunday past a sprawling Carey Price — played parts of two seasons with the Jets before ending his career in the KHL. Talented misfit Alex Burmistrov, who drew an assist on Antropov’s historic tally, played for two seasons but left in a huff and played in Russia for two more. He returned to Winnipeg for parts of two years before being waived by the club.

Long gone, too, are a couple of veteran defencemen, Johnny Oduya and Ron Hainsey, who went on to hoist Stanley Cups after leaving. Hainsey also made a name for himself as a savvy players union negotiator.

Wheeler said the now-Toronto blue-liner, who visits Wednesday with the rest of the Maple Leafs for the season-opener, had a strong presence in the locker room in Atlanta and during the club’s early days here.

“Ron Hainsey’s probably the coolest guy in the history of the league. He was really dry, really sarcastic. He and (Chris Thorburn) had some pretty good moments,” he said. “The room was fun. It was a different group, but the guys were fun.”

Evander Kane ignited the then-MTS Centre crowd with his speed and sizzling shot – he potted 30 goals that season – but wore out his welcome with his antics on social media and his tempestuous behaviour and was shipped along with erratic defenceman Zach Bogosian to the Buffalo Sabres in 2015.

Meanwhile, the rough-and-tumble trio of Tanner Glass, Jim Slater and Thorburn, dubbed the “GST Line” by some Winnipeg wiseacre, played limited fourth-line minutes. Fans chanted for them and wore T-shirts bearing slogans such as, “GST — they make you pay,” but that lasted just a season as Glass opted for free agency in the summer.

Little laughs when the line considered “taxing on opponents” was mentioned.

“That brings back a lot of memories. It was funny because fans would get the chant going when they’d be stuck in their own end for a couple of minutes. They’d be hemmed in and (spectators) would be chanting, ‘GST, GST,’” he says. “That thing took off out of nowhere. That was really funny.”

Backup goalie Chris Mason and forward Kyle Wellwood, two other notables from the opening-night roster six years ago, were at the tail end of their NHL careers and destined for Europe by 2013.

Proof the club was thin up front: Left-winger Brett MacLean, a castoff from the Phoenix Coyotes, was plucked off waivers just 72 hours before Game 1 of the season, replacing Patrice Cormier on the roster. MacLean had 18 shifts against the Habs, but competed in just four more games in the NHL; he played a portion of the year with the Arizona Coyotes’ AHL affiliate in Portland, Ore., before suffering a heart attack in July 2012 during a casual pickup game with friends in Owen Sound, Ont. He made a full recovery, but that was the end of the then-23-year-old’s pro hockey career.

The last group of originals are recent departures Pavelec, Thorburn and defenceman Mark Stuart. Rugged, hard-working Thorburn, a pending unrestricted free agent, was scooped up by the Vegas Golden Knights in June’s NHL expansion draft and Stuart was handed a buyout. Thorburn ended up signing with the St. Louis Blues in July; Stuart is still looking for work.

Scheifele played just seven games to begin the 2011-12 season before being returned to his junior club, the Barrie Colts. But memories of his first-ever training camp and a few weeks with the big club — including his first NHL goal at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, with family and friends in the crowd — are forever etched in his memory.

“It was definitely awesome to be a part of that first team. I was 18, I was new to it all and it was a pretty exciting time for me,” he says. “It’s crazy how much has changed over since then. But that’s the way this business is.

“To be a part of that first group definitely meant a lot, and I think the few of us left still are really hopeful that was the start of something really special here. Everyone wants to be on a winning team, and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish here, from management to the players to the training staff. We all want something special to happen in Winnipeg.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell