Random Jets News

[bustamente]

 

[captaincanuck12]

Well Rick, you've got 3 days to prep for the NHL draft.   And then a whole summer to fix this broken team.   Good luck!

[FrostyWinnipeg]

19 hours ago, Noeller said:

2 x 2.5 according to Lebrun.... 

Not even 3 years 🤷‍♂️

[JCon]

Just now, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Not even 3 years 🤷‍♂️

Club option for the 3rd year. 

[blue_gold_84]

Seemed like a foregone conclusion a while ago.

All the hand-wringing and whining the last few days by fans back home seems like a bit much. Bowness isn't necessarily a bad hire, IMO. Who else was worth a look after Trotz declined and Montgomery got scooped up by Boston? Jets were put in a tough spot with Trotz taking as long as he did to decide.

[blue_gold_84]

 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

41 minutes ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Seemed like a foregone conclusion a while ago.

All the hand-wringing and whining the last few days by fans back home seems like a bit much. Bowness isn't necessarily a bad hire, IMO. Who else was worth a look after Trotz declined and Montgomery got scooped up by Boston? Jets were put in a tough spot with Trotz taking as long as he did to decide.

Unless i was dreaming it I thought Arniel as assistant was announced a month or 2 ago.

[JCon]

1 minute ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Unless i was dreaming it I thought Arniel as assistant was announced a month or 2 ago.

I thought so too. Maybe not announced, though? 

[captaincanuck12]

10 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Unless i was dreaming it I thought Arniel as assistant was announced a month or 2 ago.

I don't think anything was finalized.   It was the worst kept secret that Arneil was going to be part of the coaching staff this year.

Bowness aka Bones just confirmed they signed Arneil on.

Edited July 4, 2022 by captaincanuck12

[bearpants]

54 minutes ago, JCon said:

I thought so too. Maybe not announced, though? 

It was just Murat speculating (likely based on good information) that he would be part of staff... nothing close to official.

[Noeller]

Yeah, was never made official.... just a poorly kept secret. 

[MrFreakzilla]

4 hours ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Not even 3 years 🤷‍♂️

I'm sure if it was 3 years you'd say, not even 4 years.

And if it was 4 years you'd probably say, not even 5 years.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

2 minutes ago, MrFreakzilla said:

I'm sure if it was 3 years you'd say, not even 4 years.

And if it was 4 years you'd probably say, not even 5 years.

Cannot remember last time a coach signed for less then 3 years.

[JCon]

1 minute ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

Cannot remember last time a coach signed for less then 3 years.

It's a three year deal. Team option for the third. 

[MrFreakzilla]

23 minutes ago, JCon said:

It's a three year deal. Team option for the third. 

3rd year is for million

[JCon]

Just now, MrFreakzilla said:

3rd year is for million

Close to $3M, I heard? 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

25 minutes ago, JCon said:

It's a three year deal. Team option for the third. 

Sounds like CFL contract

 

[captaincanuck12]

Sounds like Coach Bowness is already tackling the **** show.   Good for him.  

[kelownabomberfan]

22 hours ago, captaincanuck12 said:

Sounds like Coach Bowness is already tackling the **** show.   Good for him.  

I'd like to know what these issues are.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

10 hours ago, kelownabomberfan said:

I'd like to know what these issues are.

Anti-convoy views 😂

[blue_gold_84]

https://theathletic.com/3402138/2022/07/06/winnipeg-jets-bowness-wheeler-dillon-coaches-draft/

Quote

MONTREAL — Winnipeg hired its head coach, Rick Bowness, and announced its associate coach, Scott Arniel, just in time for the first in-person NHL Draft since 2019. Winnipeg’s trip to Montreal gives the Jets time to integrate Bowness, Arniel and company into their organization.

What it does not do is put an end to the enormous amount of work on the Jets’ offseason to-do list.

Winnipeg will add two more coaches to its staff — perhaps as soon as this week — while front-burner roster concerns include the fate of Blake Wheeler and trades which could open up room on defence. Given that the draft puts GMs and executives from all 32 teams in the same room with picks to trade, free agency to plan for and offseason cap flexibility to consider, I’d expect the Jets to lay the foundation for summertime transactions in the coming days.

Draft week will only accelerate Winnipeg’s offseason itinerary, particularly now that a head coach is in place and a vision for next year’s team is a little clearer as a result.

There’s no rebuild coming, even with the distinct possibility of keystone veteran players departing Winnipeg this summer

But the Jets still have plenty of work to do. Here’s what we’re hearing.

Coaching staff roles, responsibilities and the likelihood of yet one more familiar face

Pierre LeBrun reported this week that Bowness’ head coaching contract is two years, $2.5 million per year, plus a club option for a third year closer to $3 million, giving the 67-year-old head coach a short and flexible window to work with. I’ve read social media speculation that this must mean the Jets are still in on Barry Trotz.

I would pump the brakes on that kind of thinking and look a little bit closer to home.

As The Athletic first reported in May, Arniel will be a big part of Winnipeg’s staff. His associate coach title is elevated versus other assistant coaches and the promotion is by design: First, it gives Arniel a realistic pretence to leave a good situation in Washington. Arniel worked with Capitals forwards and was in charge of the team’s penalty kill, as per our Tarik El-Bashir, and was well-liked by Capitals staff. It is believed Washington would have liked Arniel to return but the combination of a promotion with the opportunity to return to Winnipeg, which where he and his wife call home, was too good to pass up.

Second, it gives Winnipeg a potential head coach in waiting for Bowness’ eventual departure. Arniel told CJOB’s Jim Toth on Monday that he was not interested in leaving Washington for anything other than a shot at a head coaching job. I believe Winnipeg will give him that shot, with the obvious caveat that anything can happen in two (or three) years’ time.

So who’s next to join Winnipeg’s staff?

I’m hearing that former Moose defenceman Nolan Baumgartner is a strong candidate to join Winnipeg’s staff. Baumgartner played two and a half seasons for Arniel’s Moose from 2008 to 2010 before embarking on his coaching career, then joined Arniel’s Chicago Wolves staff as an assistant for one season in 2012-13. The connection remains strong and now, after five years running the defence for Travis Green in Vancouver, Baumgartner has been let go and is available for his next gig.

I’m expecting that gig to be in Winnipeg so I reached out to our Harman Dayal in Vancouver.

Dayal on Baumgartner’s strengths, weaknesses and support for young defencemen

Baumgartner was Green’s right-hand man and closest assistant coach, running the Canucks penalty kill and defencemen. Vancouver’s PK results under Baumgartner weren’t anything to write home about as the club ranked 19th among NHL teams between 2017-18 and 2020-21. Last season, the Canucks’ PK was operating at a historically bad rate, touching the low to mid 60 percent range at times.

Vancouver’s PK was the single biggest issue that cost the club through the first 25 games before the coaching staff was let go. Baumgartner didn’t have a lot of high-end penalty killers on his roster — he wasn’t dealt a great hand with Brandon Sutter’s absence and the overall lack of intelligent, two-way forwards — but the PK’s results once Boudreau took over and handed the keys to Scott Walker were substantially better. Boudreau’s Canucks opted for a significantly more aggressive PK and gave opportunities to Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes — both of whom were excellent.

That said, his work with the defencemen was a lot better, I’d argue. The Canucks routinely iced one of the NHL’s worst blue lines on paper, and while Baumgartner didn’t exactly turn lemons into lemonade, I’d argue they were progressive and adaptive. The biggest thing that stood out to me is that players’ ice times generally followed their performance rather than just their reputation, which isn’t always the case around the league. Erik Gudbranson, for example, was one of Jim Benning’s splashiest acquisitions and came with a big reputation as a quality top-four defenceman. But as Gudbranson’s performance didn’t live up to the billing and so Troy Stecher, an undersized, undrafted right-shot defender, ended up logging more minutes once Green and Baumgartner took over. Instead, of sticking with the high pedigree, big name acquisition, Baumgartner and the staff made the progressive, correct evaluation to allocate more minutes to Stecher. This season again, Tucker Poolman was the Canucks’ expensive offseason signing. Poolman started the year with Hughes but he didn’t look like an optimal fit. Instead of forcing a square peg into a round hole, Poolman’s minutes were cut and Luke Schenn, who started the year as a healthy scratch, became Hughes’ go-to partner, a combination that worked significantly better. I think those two examples show that they’ll Baumgartner is an objective, adaptive evaluator — it’s hard to think of personnel/deployment decisions on the backend that really irked fans.

Another example: when Hughes came as a rookie, instead of sheltering him given his lack of stature and age, Baumgartner paired him with Chris Tanev and had Hughes hard matched against McDavid/Draisaitl on opening night. That pair ended up playing hard minutes the entire year and Hughes had an enormously successful rookie campaign. It sounds like a very obvious decision in hindsight, but I’m not sure how many NHL coaches would have looked at an undersized, rookie 20-year-old defenceman and had enough defensive trust for them to log huge minutes, matched against the opposition’s top lines from day one.

Back to Ates

The thought of a historically bad PK getting better as soon as the staff changed is frightening. At the same time, Bowness’ Stars (19th) and Arniel’s Capitals (10th) show a breadth of PK expertise. It’s clear that aggressive penalty kills have the most success — we saw the turnaround in Winnipeg when Andrew Copp told us Winnipeg stopped pulling the lawn chairs out — and optimists will point to this evolution as a sign Winnipeg won’t sit back next year.

It’s too soon to predict those X’s and O’s but I think it is especially vital to note that Baumgartner and Bowness each have strong track records giving minutes to young defencemen when those minutes are earned. Hughes and Miro Heiskanen are phenomenal players, of course; it still takes courage in today’s old-school-but-evolving NHL to entrust crucial minutes to players as young as they are. This should be great news for top defensive prospects like Ville Heinola, Dylan Samberg and Declan Chisholm.

If there’s one area that this projected coaching staff of Bowness, Arniel and Baumgartner suffer it is power play expertise. Perhaps Arniel takes on Jamie Kompon’s old role; perhaps the Jets target that skillset with their next addition.

Trading Wheeler and Dillon would not constitute a rebuild

I’m hearing that, after 11 seasons in Winnipeg and one more in Atlanta, Blake Wheeler and the Jets are ready to move on from their relationship.

This does not guarantee a trade but I think Wheeler will be traded this offseason — potentially even between now and the draft. I’m told Winnipeg is exploring the market on Wheeler and that he is open to the idea of moving on.

Wheeler was one of the NHL’s top-10 even strength players for so many seasons without getting nearly the leaguewide acclaim he earned. He controlled the flow of play with an explosive skating stride, a bulldog’s mentality and combined his large frame with elite vision through the heart of a long and impressive career. Only when his five-on-five dominance began to taper off — from elite to first-line, from first-line to middle-six — did he take control of Winnipeg’s power play, scoring back-to-back 91-point campaigns and then hovering near a point per game for three straight seasons. I will forever hold that Wheeler’s leaguewide acclaim came too late and missed his truly dominant best years.

Even now, he remains a capable middle-six player who can help a power play; Wheeler’s top speed has suffered but he still finds new ways to impact the game offensively.

Given that he has a modified no-trade clause which lists five teams to which he can be traded, Wheeler has plenty of control over his future. Florida does make some sense if enough salary can be retained, given his connection to Paul Maurice and Wheeler’s many summers spent in that state. But even a 50 percent retained Wheeler costs the Jets and his new team $4.125 million in cap space — a move won’t be easy and it won’t be a blockbuster.

Just don’t expect Heinola or Samberg or a player of that ilk to go out the door to make it happen.

The other name I’m hearing more and more often with respect to trade possibilities is Brenden Dillon. It’s well known that Winnipeg’s defence is crowded; it’s also clear that the left side is more crowded than the right. I’m hearing that Dillon is the most likely defenceman to move.

The idea makes sense, given Dillon’s $3.9 million cap hit, the thought that he can still hold down a top-four job, and Heinola and Samberg coming up behind him. Logan Stanley’s NHL job has been secure despite flagging results and left-handed Nate Schmidt plays carries an unpalatable $5.95 million cap hit; Schmidt would be tougher to move.

Winnipeg acquired him for two second-round picks; I wonder if futures or, ideally, an unheralded but effective roster player like Edmonton’s Jesse Puljujarvi could be part of a return. I’m not certain that Dillon will be moved at or before the draft — I think the start of free agency on July 13 seems a more reasonable deadline — but I do think he’s moved.

Jets draft strategy

The Jets carry a quality-over-quantity philosophy, meaning that I could spend multiple paragraphs talking up the analytical virtues of trading down from a pick in the 30-60 range for multiple lower picks… But I’d be wasting my time. That trade isn’t going to happen.

We covered a long list of players who Winnipeg could take at 14 and a separate long list of players the Jets might like at 30.

I think of U.S. NTDP star speedster Frank Nazar, 6-foot-4 Winnipeg Ice centre Conor Geekie and inconsistent but offensively gifted Brad Lambert as players the Jets might like at 14. Geekie in particular would check off a lot of boxes — partly due to his on-ice talents, partly due to Winnipeg’s lack of a big, strong centre in the pipeline and partly due to the sweet homecoming story available to the pride of Strathclair, Man.

At 30, I wonder if the Jets gamble a little, picking crasher/banger/scorer Reid Schaefer from Seattle,  or a player like Julian Lutz, the German centre who missed much of the season with a back injury but scored four points in four games at the U18 worlds. I’ve seen American scorer Isaac Howard listed in this range as well; if he drops that low, it might be tough to ignore Howard’s sheer productivity despite his five-foot-10 size.

And wouldn’t it be fun if Winnipeg took Chaz Lucius’ younger brother Cruz, projected to be a late second-round pick, at 55? Like Chaz, Cruz Lucius’ skating is a weakness that he makes up for with intelligence, puck skill and creativity. He’s less of an elite scorer than Chaz was; hence the second-round projection.

Of course, the draft board could break so many different ways. From Lucius to Heinola to Cole Perfetti, Winnipeg has had some good fortune in recent years. Perhaps we see a star player drop into Winnipeg’s reach that is tough to project here and now.

Winnipeg is scheduled to pick at 14, 30, 55, 77, 99, 175 and 207.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

https://illegalcurve.com/winnipeg-jets-2022-23-schedule-released

[iHeart]

wow only one 9 pm game this time around

[Goalie]

Draft day aka media hypes all these big trades and rumors but then nothing happens at the draft day  

Jets picking 14 and 30th today. 

BPA is the way to go. 

[bb1]

26 minutes ago, Goalie said:

Draft day aka media hypes all these big trades and rumors but then nothing happens at the draft day  

Jets picking 14 and 30th today. 

BPA is the way to go. 

Yup your probably right ,i am very curious where Lane Hutson goes in this draft,elite instincts and skill very small d man.