Jets’ Scheifele has been in beast mode since junior days with Barrie, Hawerchuk
LAS VEGAS — As a former Winnipeg Jet who had a hand in a current Jet’s success, Dale Hawerchuk is doubly interested in this year’s NHL Western Conference final.
Hawerchuk, a Jets centre from 1981 to 1990, coached current Jets centreman Mark Scheifele for three seasons when he played for the Barrie Colts from 2010 to 2013.
Hawerchuk played for Jets 1.0 before that franchise moved to Arizona in 1996.
Scheifele was the first player Jets 2.0 drafted in 2011 after the Atlanta Thrashers’ relocation to Winnipeg.
Scheifele’s shot, skating, work ethic and leadership that helped Winnipeg advance to this year’s conference final against the Vegas Golden Knights emerged during his Colt years, Hawerchuk said.
“Mark was one of those guys who was so determined to do anything extra on the ice or off the ice,” Hawerchuk said. “He would challenge players saying ‘if I don’t do this, or you don’t do this, we’re not making the show.’
“They’d be in there doing chin-ups on the chin-up bar and he would say ‘if you don’t do five more, you’re not making the show.’”
Scheifele’s quick release on a lethal shot, which generated a playoff-leading 14 goals in 15 games, is a product of summers spent in a makeshift backyard shooting gallery constructed out of tarps hung on trees and plexiglass.
“He must have shot millions of pucks all summer long in his back yard,” Hawerchuk said.
Skating was also a question mark in Scheifele’s game as a teenager, so he put in extra work on that too.
Hawerchuk believes Scheifele’s performance on the larger international ice surface at the 2011 world under-18 championship in Germany — where Hawerchuk was an assistant coach for Canada — answered questions about his skating.
The Jets made Scheifele the seventh overall pick in the draft that year.
“A lot of people were concerned about his skating,” Hawerchuk said. “He just pushed the pace in practice all the time and became a better skater. He did the work off the ice as well to build the legs.
“Really, you could argue he’s one of the fastest guys in the league now.”
Scheifele’s final season as a Colt was pivotal because he figured out how to be a dominant goal-scorer in the face of pressure from opposing team’s top checkers.
Winnipeg’s 6-foot-3, 207-pound centre is doing that again in this NHL post-season.
“It’s important for guys to be able to do that in junior if you want them to do that at the pro level,” Hawerchuk explained.