Burnside: Are the Winnipeg Jets finished already?

[sully1410]

If Chevy was truly as invested in the youth movement as some here believe why give Maurice the option of playing Peluso over Armia and Petan night after night? Why sign him? Why not tell Maurice the kids need to play?

If you weren't confident In Maurice's ability to play kids over garbage veterans (one of the single biggest criticisms about the guy with his previous teams) why sign that kind of coach in the first place?

Because I think they still have that veiw of the game where they need to have bruisers in the line up over skill. Hence why when they played big teams, or teams that have a violent streak they dressed Peluso and Thorburn instead of just Thor. I'm not saying its right or correct, but that's why.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Is PB press box or penalty box?

Uppercase is press box. Lower case is penalty box.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I get the impression that Chips has both opinions and a say with this team.

I'd be surprised if he didn't but if he is not deferring to Chevy then we have a big problem. If he was interferring though I'm sure we would have heard a lot more and more specific than the little speculation we hear.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Some might say that we have been desperate for a goalie for 5 years yet nothing was done to address the need until Shane Doan took matters into his own hands

So what? How does that fit into the context? Chevy should have addressed goaltending. We all know that. Doesn't make the Dubnyk sighting a result of foresight. Doesn't mean Chevy can find a Vezina candidate goalie on the scrapheap.

 

[JetsFan815]

So what? How does that fit into the context? Chevy should have addressed goaltending. We all know that. Doesn't make the Dubnyk sighting a result of foresight. Doesn't mean Chevy can find a Vezina candidate goalie on the scrapheap.

How do you expect Chevy/Jets to find a goalie when they dont think there's a problem there to begin with? My point is that you have to be willing to take a chance, attempt to address your shortcomings at the position of weakness to get lucky.

 

[KingBogo]

I don't think the bottom-out was by design. I think he made an unnecessary high risk bet and lost. Landing Mathews would be a game changer though.

The attempt to mesh the youth movement with the older core was by design. IMO the mistake was believing the older core on their own were up to the challenge and good enough to carry an extra load while the rookies adapted to the NHL. Keeping 1 or 2 4th line depth guys would make little difference if the heart of your team is willing to quietly watch a season slip by. On the positive side IMO it shines the light more brightly on the need to transition to the next generation despite some growing pains.

 

[Eyeseeing]

I am not sure I'm gonna blame the Asst Coaches for our special team woes. I don't know how much influence they have so it's unfair to blame them. The PP you kinda excuse it as a talent issue, but there is something systematically wrong with the PK. It doesn't take elite talent to kill penaties, just a good system that has been drilled into players' heads. Our PK is so passive esp after the other team gains control in our zone that I am frankly amazed everytime we kill a penalty off. They are just happy to block out the middle and collapse onto the center of the ice while giving all kinds to time and space to the guys on the point and on the permiter to move the puck around and eventually get a good shot off. We played this system on and off during the Noel days too

I'll blame them if you won't
If you don't think assistant coaches influence special teams , why do we employ them?
The systems that are alluded to you in your post are the exact responsibilities of those assistants.
A big failing this year, our special teams are costing us big time.

 

[KingBogo]

So what? How does that fit into the context? Chevy should have addressed goaltending. We all know that. Doesn't make the Dubnyk sighting a result of foresight. Doesn't mean Chevy can find a Vezina candidate goalie on the scrapheap.

Chevy did address goaltending within the context of draft and develop. We have 2 very nice goalie prospects in Helly and Comrie. He also picked up a player at zero cost in Hutch that turned out to be a decent NHLer. Dubnyk worked out well for the Wild, but that was on the Oilers for giving up too early on a goalie. Unless you are willing to pay a price of actual assets and an NHL starter salary for a proven goalie all that is bouncing around for the taking are unproven guys, most of which will never become starters.

 

[nobody important]

Uppercase is press box. Lower case is penalty box.

PB is, and should always be, peanut butter. It would be very easy to differentiate the two boxes if we abbreviated them by their other names: the Sin Bin and the Looney Bin.

 

[veganhunter]

Because I think they still have that veiw of the game where they need to have bruisers in the line up over skill. Hence why when they played big teams, or teams that have a violent streak they dressed Peluso and Thorburn instead of just Thor. I'm not saying its right or correct, but that's why.

Then Chevy has failed and this team is dead in the water going forward. If he is so fixated on playing 80's hockey or thought it was a good idea to hire a coach that is, that prospects have a hard time finding minutes during a so called "youth movement" this team is completely screwed.

Although judging by some decisions at the end of last year I don't necessarily think that's the reason.

 

[Whileee]

Then Chevy has failed and this team is dead in the water going forward. If he is so fixated on playing 80's hockey or thought it was a good idea to hire a coach that is, that prospects have a hard time finding minutes during a so called "youth movement" this team is completely screwed.

Pretty sure that Chevy isn't fixated on that style, considering his draft picks....

Morrissey, Petan, Ehlers, De Leo, Connor, Roslovic, Spacek, etc. He's tended to go for skill over size, especially in his early picks.

Maurice might need to learn a few new tricks once the team changes with the new talent.

 

[veganhunter]

Pretty sure that Chevy isn't fixated on that style, considering his draft picks....

Morrissey, Petan, Ehlers, De Leo, Connor, Roslovic, Spacek, etc. He's tended to go for skill over size, especially in his early picks.

Maurice might need to learn a few new tricks once the team changes with the new talent.

Which is why I edited the last part mentioning the decisions at the end of last year. Namely keeping Peluso in the PB.

But it makes you wonder why hire Maurice if your plan was to have a youth movement? It's almost like it wasn't planned at all.

 

[heretik27]

Which is why I edited the last part mentioning the decisions at the end of last year. Namely keeping Peluso in the PB.

But it makes you wonder why hire Maurice if your plan was to have a youth movement? It's almost like it wasn't planned at all.

When the alternative is Claude Noel, you take what you can get. Maurice lit a fire under their ***** when he came in and the following year. It's unfortunate they can't play with that same edge this season for whatever reason is unknown to me. If Ladd is supposed to be a lead by example guy, he's doing a piss poor job of it and might have played his way to being traded.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

How do you expect Chevy/Jets to find a goalie when they dont think there's a problem there to begin with? My point is that you have to be willing to take a chance, attempt to address your shortcomings at the position of weakness to get lucky.

No argument. The Dubnyk acquisition by Minny was just them desperately flailing around in the dark and getting lucky. It couldn't be called foresight.

I suppose it might illustrate that even desperate flailing around in the dark is better than doing nothing at all but I don't think hoping to get lucky works often enough to recommend it as a plan. As hard as projecting goalie prospects is that is about the same as drafting a bunch of goalies and hoping to get lucky on one. Chevy did the latter. The difference is that FA signing or trade is potentially faster but costs more up front. The draft takes a lot longer but only costs picks and time.

The trouble is that while you are drafting, developing and waiting for your goalie your existing core of players is passing through their prime years.

 

[Whileee]

Which is why I edited the last part mentioning the decisions at the end of last year. Namely keeping Peluso in the PB.

But it makes you wonder why hire Maurice if your plan was to have a youth movement? It's almost like it wasn't planned at all.

Shortly after Maurice was hired he made it very clear that he knew that the Jets were on a patient draft and develop trajectory, and he knew that it would take years for the team to be consistently in the top 7-10 teams in the NHL.

I think that Maurice has a notion that having toughness in the line-up is important, and maybe even more important if you are playing smaller young skilled players. It never made sense to me. I just hope that Maurice is able to adapt his coaching style once he has a roster of quicker and more talented players.

I happen to think that the issue is how best to manage the "transition" from the current core to the younger core. The Jets appear to be doing it gradually. I think it's been too gradual. I hope they weren't fooled by last year's temporary success, and based on their actions so far, it doesn't look like they were.

 

[Gm0ney]

I would say they inherited some good, young, big names and a lack of depth / lot of holes to fill, as evidenced by the large group of players who were with the team in Year 1 that are now completely out of the league.

Still here:
Ladd, Wheeler, Stuart, Burmistrov, Little, Thorburn, Pavelec, Byfuglien, Enstrom

Added & Currently Playing:
Trouba, Ehlers, Myers, Stafford, Scheifele, Perreault, Lowry (31 games out of 34), Copp, Chiarot, Peluso, Hutchinson, Petan, Hellebuyck, Halischuk, Armia

Gone during Thrashers / Jets transition:
Boulton (not re-signed in the Thrashers/Jets transition off-season, still playing in the NHL) & Stewart (not re-signed in the Thrashers/Jets transition off-season, only played in the NHL one more year)

Players inherited from Thrashers, or who signed with the Jets prior to / during Year 1 & are no longer with the team:
Slater (SWI), Wellwood (SWI), Stapleton (SWI), Miettinen (FIN), Glass (AHL), Kane (traded), Bogosian (traded), Oduya (traded), Hainsey (not re-signed), Fehr (not re-signed), Jones (UFA/AHL), Flood (AHL), Mason (GER).

* Note: Lists (excluding this year) are based on minimum 30 GP, and less for Chris Mason since he was the undisputed #2 goalie.

No, Jets management hasn't been perfect, but their mistakes (so far) haven't involved losing a valuable player that was on their roster when they bought the team, and getting nothing in return. Comparing the first two lists with the last two, so far management has made upgrades, even if it's not reflected by this year's standings.

I meant Chevy squandered the prime years of a decent core, not that he'd lost them for nothing. The core came here from Atlanta surrounded by garbage, and Chevy didn't do enough to change that.

 

[Whileee]

No argument. The Dubnyk acquisition by Minny was just them desperately flailing around in the dark and getting lucky. It couldn't be called foresight.

I suppose it might illustrate that even desperate flailing around in the dark is better than doing nothing at all but I don't think hoping to get lucky works often enough to recommend it as a plan. As hard as projecting goalie prospects is that is about the same as drafting a bunch of goalies and hoping to get lucky on one. Chevy did the latter. The difference is that FA signing or trade is potentially faster but costs more up front. The draft takes a lot longer but only costs picks and time.

The trouble is that while you are drafting, developing and waiting for your goalie your existing core of players is passing through their prime years.

I think that this core with a decent goalie is just a playoff bubble team, just like last season. This core with inconsistent goaltending is a bottom-10 team. That's what we saw all the other years of Jets 2.0.

Why bother with short-term fixes of your goalie when the rest of the core is sub-par?

 

[Whileee]

I meant Chevy squandered the prime years of a decent core, not that he'd lost them for nothing. The core came here from Atlanta surrounded by garbage, and Chevy didn't do enough to change that.

The only way to really build enough around the Atlanta core would have been to give up picks and prospects. He did that occasionally (Frolik and Setoguchi), and then for rentals last year (Stemp and Tlusty). Free agent signings rarely give you that sort of quality, and he's been hit or miss (Perreault vs. Jokinen).

It's much easier to build around a really good core.

 

[Gm0ney]

I think that this core with a decent goalie is just a playoff bubble team, just like last season. This core with inconsistent goaltending is a bottom-10 team. That's what we saw all the other years of Jets 2.0.

Why bother with short-term fixes of your goalie when the rest of the core is sub-par?

This is a terrific justification for Chevy's goalie strategy! It sums up everything that's wrong with his thinking. Why bother, indeed...

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

When the alternative is Claude Noel, you take what you can get. Maurice lit a fire under their ***** when he came in and the following year. It's unfortunate they can't play with that same edge this season for whatever reason is unknown to me. If Ladd is supposed to be a lead by example guy, he's doing a piss poor job of it and might have played his way to being traded.

I think Noel gets too little respect around here. In the Jets first 3 seasons, with an arguably weaker roster he had a better result after 34 games than what Maurice has this year.

 

[veganhunter]

Shortly after Maurice was hired he made it very clear that he knew that the Jets were on a patient draft and develop trajectory, and he knew that it would take years for the team to be consistently in the top 7-10 teams in the NHL.

I think that Maurice has a notion that having toughness in the line-up is important, and maybe even more important if you are playing smaller young skilled players. It never made sense to me. I just hope that Maurice is able to adapt his coaching style once he has a roster of quicker and more talented players.

I happen to think that the issue is how best to manage the "transition" from the current core to the younger core. The Jets appear to be doing it gradually. I think it's been too gradual. I hope they weren't fooled by last year's temporary success, and based on their actions so far, it doesn't look like they were.

I tend to agree with you all of what you've said here.

 

[AlphaLackey]

I think Noel gets too little respect around here. In the Jets first 3 seasons, with an arguably weaker roster he had a better result after 34 games than what Maurice has this year.

However, the Jets were playing in a far, far weaker division.

But Noel does get too little respect, I'll give you that.

 

[Whileee]

This is a terrific justification for Chevy's goalie strategy! It sums up everything that's wrong with his thinking. Why bother, indeed...

There's a difference between "justification" and "agreement". Look it up.

For example, as soon as last season was over, I was advocating for the Jets to go on a "youth movement" this season, even if it meant taking a step back. That's what Chevy did. Am I supposed to now say I don't agree with that approach just so I don't look like I'm "justifying" Chevy's decisions?

When I say that I think that Chevy has not been aggressive enough in turning over this core, that's a pretty fundamental disagreement with his approach. Maybe if I used all sorts of emotional language or critiqued Chevy by calling him names it would register more on these boards where people seem to like to interact with a much higher degree of emotional investment than I think is necessary.

 

[JetsFan815]

I think that this core with a decent goalie is just a playoff bubble team, just like last season. This core with inconsistent goaltending is a bottom-10 team. That's what we saw all the other years of Jets 2.0.

Why bother with short-term fixes of your goalie when the rest of the core is sub-par?

The performance of the rest of the players is sub-par because they play in front of bottom 5 goaltending in the entire league (including the playoffs last year). Chevy took the gifts he got from Dudley and proceeded to ruin their prime years.

 

[Whileee]

The performance of the rest of the players is sub-par because they play in front of bottom 5 goaltending in the entire league (including the playoffs last year). Chevy took the gifts he got from Dudley and proceeded to ruin their prime years.

I disagree that this core was ever just a steady goaltender away from being a real contender. Sorry.