ASPIRING JETS HOPING ROSTER BUBBLE DOESN’T POP JUST YET
Letestu, Bitetto and Bourque fighting to earn regular spot on Winnipeg’s roster
Some trying times have tagged along with Mark Letestu over the last couple of seasons.
In 2016-17, he put together his most productive season, posting a career-high 16 goals and 35 points with the Edmonton Oilers.
It coincided with what was thought to be Edmonton’s breakout season with Connor McDavid and Co. Letestu, now 34, featured in 78 regular season games and would play in all 13 of the Oilers’ playoff games that season, scoring five times and adding six assists before they were knocked out in the second round by the Anaheim Ducks in Game 7.
The good times in Edmonton didn’t last long. As the Oilers took a step back the following season, so too did Letestu. He was traded at the deadline, first to Nashville and then over to Columbus a few hours later. There, he went pointless in six playoff games as the Blue Jackets crashed out of the post-season at the hands of the 2017-18 Stanley Cup-champion Washington Capitals.
Letestu suited up for just two games in the NHL last season. He spent most the year, some 64 games, playing with the
Blue Jackets’ American Hockey League affiliate in Cleveland.
“There’s certainly been some adversity for me,” Letestu said Sunday after Day 2 of Winnipeg Jets training camp.
“Tough” is also how Anthony Bitetto would characterize his last couple of seasons.
Being a defenceman on the outside looking in with the Nashville Predators and their vaunted rearguard isn’t an easy situation to navigate.
“We had top-four defencemen that were studs and even the five and six guys there were good players,” Bitetto said in his thick Long Island accent. “So I felt a little bit shelled there.”
Bitetto was in and out of the lineup. Last season, he was waived by the Predators in January after appearing in 18 games. He was claimed the following day by the Minnesota Wild and would play 18 games with them before becoming an unrestricted free agent in the summer.
“It’s the past now. It’s a new start (here).” said Bitetto, now with his third Central Division team since the beginning of the calendar year.
A chance for a new beginning is what brought Gabriel Bourque into the fray as well.
Like Letestu and Bitetto, Bourque arrived in Winnipeg looking for a regular role after several seasons trying to carve one out elsewhere, first in Nashville and then in Colorado, with significant time spent in the AHL.
And like Letestu and Bitetto, Bourque comes to Winnipeg on a two-way deal, looking to seize an opportunity in a lineup that’s had some vacancies.
“It was a good fit,” Bourque said. “After the talk I had with them, it was a good match. A good chance for me to come here.”
The trio’s two-way caveat in their contracts dictates their characterization heading into camp: They are players sitting on the bubble with no guarantees of a roster spot come Winnipeg’s opener in New York against the Rangers on Oct. 3.
But if their future rests on a bubble, one that could burst at any moment, their mentality most certainly does not. Letestu said he doesn’t enter a training camp, a practice or a game with any extra anxiety.
“The three of us, we’ve had enough experience in the NHL that when we come to camp, we carry ourselves as NHL players and we expect to be here until we are told we’re not,” Letestu said.
They’ve kept to their word. Saturday’s first session was rough and rugged and all three were in the mix as the intensity picked up.
“That’s a team that competes and works hard. It’s fun to be a part of it,” Bitetto said after Saturday’s skate.
Entering his sixth training camp, Bitetto said he hasn’t seen one quite as focused as his first with the Jets.
“It’s a team that works up and down the sheet competing on every drill,” he said. “It was intense out there. I like that, it’s a good feeling.”
For Jets coach Paul Maurice, first and foremost, a bubble guy has to fit — in the room, in the system and the style of the team.
“It’s about how do you fit with the group, what’s your work ethic? If this is the role that you’re trying out for, how comfortable are you in that role? If it’s an eight- to 12-minute role, do you embrace it? Can you sit on the bench for four minutes and come out and give us that energy?
Can you be real reliable in the systems?”
Then, they have to separate. “They’ve gotta do something to be seen, to make an impression,” Maurice said. “With these players, it doesn’t have to be on the scoresheet.”
One of the great debates in hockey these days has been the quantifiable value of the unseen.
While many facets of the game can now be captured through the use of mathematics, intangibles — grit or being a room guy, for instance — do not have a hard and fast metric to evaluate their effects on the game.
You will, however, find few coaches who don’t value these veiled traits in some way and Maurice is no different.
The coach said the team’s veteran additions over the summer — Letestu, Bourque and Bitetto — check those boxes.
“They’re all pretty darn good system-wise with whatever team they’ve played (on) and they’ve got really good reputations for being great character, room guys,” Maurice said.
“And there is a value to that.” sbilleck@postmedia.com Twitter.com/scottbilleck
It’s about how do you fit with the group, what’s your work ethic?