The Winnipeg Jets went from sweeping the Edmonton Oilers to being swept by the Montreal Canadiens. The all Canada division has certainly been a roller coaster with both the favorites being eliminated and with Montreal surprising everyone, being the first team to advance to the conference finals. As it was happening, it was a bit of a surprise that the Jets got swept but now that the dust has settled and we look back on it, it’s not as big of a shock. Have to give credit where credit is due, Montreal has been a wagon since they beat Toronto in seven. Carey Price is being Carey Price, their young stars are starting to make a splash and they have a solid core of veteran guys to back it all up. Winnipeg just ran a little thinner of a line up and at the end of the day that’s what made the difference in this series.
So what went wrong? Well the big story with Winnipeg was the Mark Scheifele suspension, his hit on Jake Evans in game one landed him a four game suspension that he will now need to wait for the season opener to complete. On top of that, Dylan Demelo, who has been one of Winnipeg’s most reliable defenders was also unavailable for the last three games of the series. Nikolai Ehlers was playing with a torn labrum as well as other injuries, Pierre-Luc Dubois couldn’t get going, Similarly to Toronto, Winnipeg’s top players weren’t there and their depth guys weren’t providing the way a playoff contending team’s depth players should.
All things considered, it’s tough to really pin this loss on the players. You can’t blame Ehlers or Demelo for being hurt. The Scheifele suspension is tough, I’ll be real honest, I didn’t see much wrong with that hit. Did it need to happen? Probably not. Is it unfortunate that Evans got hurt? Very. Was it a dirty hit? Absolutely not. Scheifele stopped taking strides as soon as he crossed the blueline, didn’t leave his feet to deliver the hit therefore it wasn't charging. Wasn’t a head shot, didn’t use his hands or elbow and it wasn’t even a late hit. You can make the argument that he didn’t appear to make any attempt to get his stick on the puck, sure, but take the situation into consideration. It’s game one of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, your net is empty, you're down in the game, the opponent is all alone in your zone with the puck. Your focus is on getting back and defending your empty net, Scheifele played the body, delivered a clean hit, it was just unfortunate that Evans was in a vulnerable spot on the wrap-around and as a result, got injured from the play.
Again, was the hit necessary? Probably not, but I don’t think that warranted a four game suspension by any means, especially to a player with no previous history. One game, maybe two should’ve sufficed but at the end of the day, would it have changed anything? I think Montreal has a special energy within their group and it was unmatched for Winnipeg. Even if you want to play the hypothetical game, with a healthy Demelo, a 100% Ehlers and having Schiefele for each game, at best it might have kept Winnipeg in it for an extra day. So where do the Jets go from here?
Well, Paul Stastny, Matthieu Perrault, Jordie Benn and Derek Forbort come off the books, freeing up 16.8% of the teams cap hit. That alone gives the Jets a lot of flexibility with their projected $15 million worth of cap space. As far as guys who will become RFA’s, they only have Neal Pionk, Logan Stanley and Andrew Copp to worry about. I’m not sure that it will be that crazy of an offseason for Winnipeg, which can be problematic since they need a lot of work. Defensively, this team is in a tough spot. Aside from Neal Pionk and Josh Morrisey, they really don’t have much other than Dylan Demelo apparently. Samu Niku and VIllie Heinola are two younger guys that still have some potential but other than that, it’s clear the back end is where they need to improve the most.
Goaltending wise, they are set for the next couple years with one of the league's best in Connor Hellebuyck. They may look to upgrade their back-up goaltender position as Laurent Brossoit and Eric Comrie are both set to become UFA’s. Aside from that, the best thing for the Jets to do this offseason is to look to improve their group of defenders, add some second hand scoring for their bottom six and hope that they can get back to this point next year. Assuming they’re able to do that and come back with a little deeper of a line up, they could have the potential to make some noise.
Chris Feldman
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