Young stars still unsigned, but Jets GM playing it cool
Cheveldayoff focused on training camp with no end in sight to staring contest
It’s four days from the start of training camp, and still no deals in sight for two of his top players.
You would think that would leave Kevin Cheveldayoff with either a nervous twitch or a short temper.
But the man who generally manages the Winnipeg Jets didn’t seem to have either as he leaned up against a brick wall for a chat with a reporter here in the home of the Belleville Senators, Ottawa’s AHL farm club.
We covered, of course, the mucky contract negotiations the Jets are stuck in with Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor. As usual, asking about the actual talks is like spinning your wheels. So I tried to nudge Chevy along by asking about the deadline of training camp.
Or is it even a deadline? “I would suspect that everybody wants to start the season,” Cheveldayoff said. “That’s the motivation for everybody. The season is starting, training camp is training camp ... and you hit the ground running.”
Of course, not everybody feels the pressure to get the rubber down in time for camp. Some (hello, William Nylander in Toronto) are even willing to miss a couple months of the regular season.
Others, like the Jets’ own Josh Morrissey last year, cause only a minor disruption and are behind the wheel after missing just a few days.
Trying to gauge Cheveldayoff’s level of optimism is pointless.
“It’s business,” he said. “And we don’t really talk about the RFAS at any point. But we’ll keep working at it.”
Has the needle moved since the start of the summer?
“I’m a realist,” he said. “I’m not an optimist or a pessimist.”
Midway through the summer I wrote a tongue-in-cheek column picturing Cheveldayoff sleeping in a hammock at his cottage, waiting for agents to call.
It was supposed to be funny, but you have to wonder if the “negotiations” have amounted to a three-month staring contest. So I nudged in that direction. More wheel spinning.
“That’s probably getting into the nitty-gritty of it,” Cheveldayoff said. “There’s no secret that we have a few players in that situation. There’s a lot of other players in the same situation, as well. They’re all faced with training camp starting on Thursday night, essentially. Everybody is certainly focused on that.”
It couldn’t have helped that Arizona agreed to back up the truck and unload US$57 million over eight years into Clayton Keller’s lap last week. Keller is coming off a 47-point season. Laine had 50, Connor 66.
Gulp.
“Any time deals are done, you look at them,” Cheveldayoff said.
“But it’s got its own set of circumstances. And you look at the cycle that Arizona is in right now, having drafted players for a long time that they’re looking to lock up.”
It was clear that was all the Jets boss had to say about RFAS.
Sometimes when you’re stuck, you’ve got to push backwards.
So I asked Cheveldayoff to put it in reverse and rock it back to the unhappy conclusion of last season.
“Last year was a little bit closer, a little more intense, than people understood,” he said.
“You lose to what turns out to be the Stanley Cup champions in a pretty emotional situation, where you have leads in games, and if you had closed them out, who knows what it would have been? But that’s the sports side of it.”
It seemed we were getting some traction.
“It’s hard to shake that feeling,” Cheveldayoff continued. “Because you put a lot into it.
And it gets to a certain point where you think you’re never going to lose. So when you don’t win, you have to evaluate, and then obviously the business side takes care of itself. And sometimes the business side is harsh.”
I reminded Cheveldayoff about St. Louis winger Patrick Maroon’s comment after winning the Cup, when he said old-time hockey was back, and “screw the speed.”
Has the Blues’ win changed the way he looks at building a championship team?
“Every team plays to their strengths,” Cheveldayoff said. “Every championship team, they get analyzed, and well they should. But there’s more than just one single component that comes into it. Their goaltender was exceptional. Their size, obviously, was exceptional. Their ability to stay healthy, relatively, through the playoffs, that’s an important part, as well.
“That’s the style of game he plays, so he’s entitled to that opinion.”
The Jets’ first-round breakdown was only the capper on a season that never did get into high gear. Add the off-season defections, especially on the blue-line, and you wonder where, exactly, they’re headed.
“We’ve got a tremendous leadership group,” Cheveldayoff said. “All these things are growing experiences. They’ve gained the playoff experiences from two years ago, the playoff experiences, the goods and the bads and just how hard it is to win, from last year. And how hard the season itself is. It’s a marathon.
“There’s confidence because our group is growing.”
So perhaps, in the end, he is an optimist. Even if a couple of key deals remain stuck.
Maybe one or two of the bluechip prospects in the rookie tournament here this week can provide a lift until Laine and Connor get on board.
It’s like calling for a tow.
This is the CAA Arena, after all.
When you don’t win, you have to evaluate, and then obviously the business side takes care of itself. And sometimes the business side is harsh.