JETS SOAR TO UNCHARTED TERRITORY
Win over Preds Monday will put Winnipeg in conference final,
There’s a bit of an unreal feeling about downtown Nashville, where bands don’t play much of their own music and it’s one big bleach-blond party after another.
But history will show this is where the Winnipeg Jets proved they’re for real.
Two wins on Tennessee ice, one of hockey’s most unfriendliest places next to Winnipeg for opponents this season, has this Canadian Prairie team on the verge of reaching the Western Conference final and sending last year’s Cup finalist to a shocking demise.
It’s all happened so fast and yet taken so long. An overnight sensation seven years in the making.
Remember how Blake Wheeler went into the season saying it was playoffs or bust this year?
Somewhere along the way, the Jets captain realized the possibilities were, in fact, much greater.
“You never want to get too far ahead of yourself,” Wheeler said Sunday. “We started having some success and when it’s a little bit new to your group, you don’t know if it’s real, if it’s a one-off or if it’s sustainable. We started having sustainable success. We were starting to put together some pretty good runs.
“We knew that our team was real, that we weren’t just a flash in the pan or we were going to have a good month and then go away.”
A good month led to another. Not even losing key players to injury could stop the momentum.
Clinching a playoff spot became an afterthought as the Jets barged into the post-season on an 11-1 run.
Wheeler says he can’t pinpoint the day or the game that convinced him something special was happening, but he knows what put things over the top.
“It definitely happened at some point when I knew that we had a legitimate team,” he said. “Obviously, once we traded for Staz (Paul Stastny), that solidified that, it made you think we had a pretty special group. But that being said, you go into the playoffs with the second-best record in the league, it doesn’t mean anything. Clean slate. You start over.”
They’ve picked up right where they left off, disposing of Minnesota in five games and now leading Nashville 3-2 in their series after a 6-2 romp that drew rave reviews Saturday night. “We feel good,” Stastny said. “But we’re not satisfied at all.”
Stastny, too, has waited a long time for a team, an opportunity, he can hang his hat on. A dozen years in the league, two more than Wheeler even, and still no gold ring.
The 32-year-old approved a trade-deadline move from his home in St. Louis to Winnipeg because he thought it could look like this. Not because he knew.
“You have these hopes,” Stastny said. “But at the same time, you don’t want the exact opposite to happen. You’re nervous at first. Excited. It’s a mixed bag of emotions.
“But, just because we have a good team, nothing was guaranteed. I’ve been on good teams where we lose in the first round.”
He’s also been to the third round once with the Blues two years ago. The difference between the good teams that go far and those that don’t?
A mix of things, Stastny said. “It’s an attitude. It’s coaching. Good leadership. Good depth. To be successful in playoffs, different guys are going to step up every night.”
Some nights it’s your goalie. Some nights your veteran leaders. Some nights your kids.
And some nights it’s the 32-year-old acquired at the deadline.
Most importantly, nobody cares who it is.
“Everyone’s all about the team,” Stastny said. “That’s one thing I saw right when I got here. Winning ’s contagious. And everyone realizes how rare it is and how bad everyone wants it.”