JETS’ SEASON OF SURVIVAL TOOK ON ANOTHER CHAPTER
Coach would love to see team compete in playoffs, but safety comes first
The disappointment that coursed through Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice after the 2019-20 National Hockey League season was put on pause didn’t subside for several days. Truthfully, it still hasn’t fully. “Because I felt that this team got stressed right to its maximum but there was a light at the end of the tunnel because I’d never seen a March schedule like that,” Maurice said, speaking on a video conference call. “Our schedule was brutal in the first half … but our March was good. I don’t ever remember seeing a March that was kind of that good. And I thought we’re just getting healthy, like here comes the payoff for these guys.”
A trying season, one that included significant roster turnover, injury after injury, a couple of contract holdouts and a no-show by the team’s best defenceman among other things, challenged the Jets at every juncture.
“They didn’t quit,” said Maurice, who’s coaching in his 22nd season in the NHL.
The Jets had positioned themselves into the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference with a 37-28-6 record (80 points) after a 4-2 defeat of the Edmonton Oilers on March 11.
By mid-afternoon a day later, and with the team already in
Calgary for their next matchup a couple of nights later, the season had come to a halt, and with it, a four-game winning streak that had the Jets playing some of their best hockey of the season.
And for those first few days, the 53-year-old didn’t fully appreciate what was going on outside of the hockey bubble.
“I guess nobody did, the seriousness of this virus and what it was going to do to the world at that time,” he said. “I sat back behind the bench a lot and watched these guys go as hard as they could and drive as hard as they could and know when a guy’s playing with two tears in his knee and a broken bone in his foot and watching him play. So you’re pulling for them. And that’s why those first few days after, it’s just, ‘Uncle.’ Like enough. You know how your Mom used to tell you to take the garbage can to the road because it builds character. We had done enough. We had kind of earned the right. And you feel like you’re advantaged. So the advantage that you did have in March, your schedule, looked better than the rest of the league. Not in terms of easy competition, we’re playing all the teams that we need to beat to make the playoffs, but we were setup to be healthy and good and strong going into the playoffs and having survived an incredible year. And you can build a lot of confidence with that. So that’s why it’s so tough.
“And it still bothers me to this day. But again, against the backdrop of what the world’s dealing with, it’s something we can get over.”
Maurice made it clear during the call that hockey makes way for the safety of everyone at this point.
Yes, he would like to get his team back on the ice. Yes, he would like the current season to continue at some point. Anywhere.
“My desire is completely personal. I want to see this team, the Winnipeg Jets team, play,” Maurice said. “I don’t care what format it is. I want an opportunity to compete for the playoffs, I want a fair opportunity to do that. But I want to see this season played. I’m not concerned about next year or what this season would do to next year. Those are all real problems and real issues that smart people got to figure out.”
But that’s just small potatoes, he said, compared to what people are going through at the moment.
“People are losing their lives,” Maurice said. “The hardship that’s out there — losing their jobs, certainly the challenges that the world faces with this far outweigh what Paul Maurice wants to see happen with the Winnipeg Jets.”
If it is over, Maurice will look back on a team that, up against two or three “incredible things” going on, stood united.
I want an opportunity to compete for the playoffs, I want a fair opportunity to do that.