Frustration can sometimes be the gateway to honesty. That was definitely the case on Saturday, when Blake Wheeler could hold his tongue no more after the Winnipeg Jets turned in another stinker. “What I say doesn’t matter,” vented Wheeler following a 6-4 loss to the Dallas Stars. “It’s what you do out on the ice. You can blow smoke as much as you want out in the media, we’ve been blowing smoke for three years. Myself and everyone who has stood in front of a microphone for three years, we’ve said the same s–t.”
That sound you hear is the book officially closing on the honeymoon period in Winnipeg. Since returning to their native land for the 2011-12 season, the Jets have been a middling hockey team, never good for too long, never bad enough to trigger talk of rebuilds. The club might be back where it belongs, but it’s also just kind of there, existing in that maddening middle ground where it’s tough to see why significant advancement is on tap in either the short or long term.
No wonder Wheeler has had enough.
The win some, lose a few more pattern was something Jets fans could stomach for two seasons while riding the high of having hockey in their town again. And if there was a strong indication this team was headed in the right direction, the L’s might be a little easier to take. But this team has big-time questions at key areas that don’t figure to be answered any time soon. Despite Bryan Little’s productive year, the Jets are very thin down the middle. In goal, Ondrej Pavelec’s play is a microcosm for the whole situation, as he yo-yo’s between stuffs and whiffs. The bottom line is, the 26-year-old has only once finished a season with a save percentage above .910, and that came during the franchise’s final year as the Atlanta Thrashers. On the blueline, Dustin Byfuglien is great offensively, but lacks the overall game to anchor a defence corps. Tobias Enstrom, meanwhile, is full marks for his smart, efficient game, but his small stature and lack of overwhelming skill puts a ceiling on his impact.
That’s not to suggest there aren’t some positives in Manitoba. Rookie Jacob Trouba could very well fit the bill of a stud defenceman in a year or two; Andrew Ladd’s production has predictably dipped after last year’s near point-per-game pace, but he remains a great, gritty captain, and Wheeler himself is one of the team’s consistent scoring threats. Who knows, maybe the mercurial Evander Kane will eventually break the right way. Twenty-year-old Mark Scheifele is still finding his way in the NHL and a couple 2013 draftees—defenceman Josh Morrisey and centre Nic Petan—could be strong players on Canada’s world junior team in a couple weeks. If you’re looking for hope, there’s some to be found.
But this was never about Winnipeg having nothing going for it—this is about breaking free of the mediocre holding pattern the Jets continue to circle in, and that’s a tricky task. The odds are already stacked against Winnipeg sneaking into a playoff spot in the ultra-competitive Western Conference, but nobody expects a sell-off of any kind. And when the dust settles on this season, the Jets will be a long way from drafting that franchise-altering player you hope to find in the first couple picks. So where, exactly, will dramatic change come from?
Maybe the club can shift its current trajectory with a couple shrewd trades or having a couple prospects go well beyond where anyone projected them. Maybe. But that scenario involves a lot of faith, which must be in short supply for any person frustrated by the Jets’ endless up-and-down play.