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The best off-season signing the Jets have made is journeyman forward Sam Gagner (left). While he’s a solid addition, Jets fans are left wondering why the team’s brass hasn’t made more dynamic moves in light of last season. USA TODAY SPORTS
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This is far from where many thought the Winnipeg Jets would be with just a couple of weeks to go before the training-camp doors open across the National Hockey League.
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A projected summer of team-altering moves following, frankly, a terrible season on the ice for the club was what the doctor prescribed. But as we inch toward the middle of September, the Jets seem to have stopped following the science.
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Case in point: General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff’s splashiest addition this off-season is 33-year-old journeyman forward Sam Gagner. This isn’t a slight against Gagner, who should be a solid depth add for the club. It’s just not what many fans were expecting and/or hoping for when the final nail was driven into Winnipeg’s miserable 2021-22 campaign this past spring.
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A team that lost a steely forward in Andrew Copp, a leader in Paul Stastny and a breakout backup netminder in Eric Comrie hasn’t exactly replaced them. And those were on top of the bevy of issues already plaguing the team.
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A rock-solid explanation for the apparent inaction is hard to come by.
Twelve months ago, the picture painted of this Jets team was much more vibrant. Cheveldayoff added Brenden Dillon and Nate Schmidt to their defence corps and were anticipating bigger and better things from Pierre-Luc Dubois up front after a tough first season in the ‘Peg.
Of course, no one saw coming more COVID shutdowns, more empty arenas and an abrupt coaching change before the middle of the season. But every team, outside of the coaching change, endured some form of COVID turmoil.
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The good teams rose above their adversity. The Jets wallowed in their own.
You could view, in a vacuum, last season as an anomaly. That might explain the lack of moves made by Winnipeg’s GM — the thought that there’s a good team in there somewhere, it just never got out of the station for myriad reasons.
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The theory would be that Cheveldayoff constructed a team he was happy with, only to see it unravel thanks to a resurgent global pandemic, Paul Maurice’s fading voice and the seemingly ignored one of his interim replacement, Dave Lowry.
That sort of hypothesis is a tough sell around these parts, however. The Calgary Flames took a brutal hand dealt to them, losing Johnny Gaudreau to free agency and watching Matthew Tkachuk force his way out, and turned it into Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar and Nazem Kadri.
It’s not the exact same situation, but the essence of it — bad thing(s) happen, good thing(s) done to mitigate — is what’s missing in the eastern prairies.
Flames GM Brad Treliving assessed the situation and went on the offensive. It’s the type of aggression Jets fans would have loved to have seen.
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For years, fans have clamoured for a more youth-integrated approach. The years of bringing in aging veteran forwards has grown tiresome, especially when it’s come at the cost of overlooking budding prospects itching for a chance to prove themselves.
Going by Winnipeg’s roster, as it’s currently constructed, the youth movement could be a big part of Winnipeg’s 2022-23 direction… at least up front.
Cole Perfetti, Mason Appleton, Morgan Barron, and Jansen Harkins are likely roster mainstays while Kristian Reichel and David Gustafsson will battle it out for their own spots. Some will be glad to see the Jets going to their internal well, it stalls out on defence where arguably their two top prospects — Ville Heinola and Dylan Samberg — appear not to have the same assurances of steady NHL ice-time.
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The Jets could still move out one of their veteran pieces, be it Dillon or Dylan DeMelo (based solely on their friendlier contracts than, say, Nate Schmidt’s). But if not, there’s one spot available for two players that should be seeing significant NHL time this season. And Logan Stanley won’t be backing down from what would turn into a three-horse race for the final spot on the blue line.
There is still quality on the free-agent market that could have a tangible impact on the ice for Winnipeg. Evan Rodrigues’ name still sits on that list, as does Sonny Milano’s.
One gets the sense that if Rodrigues and the Jets saw fit for a marriage between the two, the nuptials would have already taken place. Milano is an intriguing option, with solid analytics and youth in his back pocket. Why he hasn’t been signed anywhere is somewhat of a mystery.
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The lack of movement for the Jets may also point to one of their worst realities — Winnipeg isn’t a destination city, despite whatever you saw on the Price is Right the other day.
The Jets could offer Rodrigues, for example, good money and ample opportunity — two things he’s reportedly after. But Winnipeg doesn’t offer him a winner at the moment.
Stastny would never have waived his no-trade clause in 2018 to come to Winnipeg if the Jets didn’t appear to be on the verge of a big playoff push. For the Jets to remain competitive in the free-agent market, they must be competitive on the ice — and less noisy off of it.
It’s possible new head coach Rick Bowness, the team’s only real “big move” of the offseason, can turn the team around with the parts he’s given. His latest track record in Dallas suggests an ability to do so, and a revamped coaching staff should help the finer areas of the game.
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If the Jets are clinging to the hope that last year was a one-off, they better hope the team hits the ground running come mid-October.
There are still so many questions without answers. Why is Blake Wheeler still with the Jets if both sides saw it fit to divorce? How can Mark Scheifele be suddenly upbeat about a team he seemed so downtrodden on just a few short months ago?
And perhaps the biggest question of all — can an unchanged team (arguably worse, given personnel losses) be expected to be any better than they were last season?
Fan apathy was bad enough in April, and the Jets didn’t sell out a single game last season.
How bad does it get with a mediocre start a few months later?
Twitter: @scottbilleck
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