Jets coach has adapted to modern NHL: Wheeler
He’s yelled and screamed at times, raged at a bad play or set of plays. But to the players in the Winnipeg Jets’ dressing room, while the words haven’t always been the nicest, critically, they’ve also never been malicious.
“It’s never crossed the line,” said 23-year-old Nikolaj Ehlers of head coach Paul Maurice. “And sometimes you need that (kick in the pants). Sometimes you need to hear it. He’s said things to us, sometimes he’s yelled, but it’s always been respectful.
“It’s never been like, ‘F--- you.’” The culture within the game of hockey, and perhaps the hidden toxicity that hovers like a dark cloud at times, has been a hot topic of conversation lately after a pair of revelations shocked the hockey world over the past week.
Not long after Mike Babcock was fired as the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, a report surfaced detailing an incident between the ousted bench boss and star forward Mitch Marner during his rookie campaign where the latter was forced to rank his new teammates from first to worst in terms of work ethic, a list that was then shared with the players themselves.
A second blow hit when a former player under current
Calgary Flames head coach Bill Peters came forward alleging a racial slur from Peters a decade ago while he was in the Chicago Blackhawks organization, with the AHL’S Rockford Icehogs.
Both incidents have brought to light the apparent issues that go unseen behind closed doors, especially when it comes to young players who are becoming the majority of teams’ lineups these days in a shifting landscape in the NHL.
But to a man for the Jets, it’s never been an issue during Maurice’s reign as the team’s head coach. If anything, Maurice and his coaching staff, according to those who play for them, have gone out of their way to foster a professional atmosphere that allows constructive criticism.
“The way a coach should be, that’s how Paul has always been with positive and negative things about my game,” Ehlers said.
Maurice addressed the Babcock incident and the larger question of coaching philosophies earlier this week. He said he’s sure there are players that he didn’t rub the right way and relationships that didn’t go well.
“When you’re constantly pushing to a threshold to get the most out of players in an intense environment, you’re going to have situations where players feel they should have been handled differently or they didn’t like it,” Maurice said. “You do the best you can. I think there is a real awareness over the last year, certainly on our staff and if I’m going to give anybody credit, I’m going to give the assistant coaches credit for kind of pushing me to evolve, to be more understanding, maybe, of young players. More caring, possibly. There will be a whole bunch of guys who’ll say I haven’t hit that threshold yet.”
Maurice, in his 22nd year as an NHL head coach, will hit 1,600 games coached in the league by season’s end. He’s still learning how to deal with players young enough to be his kids. Sometimes, that’s included a little help from the guys he coaches.
“You guys won’t get the player right, but Blake Wheeler grabs me about a year-and-a-half ago and says, ‘Just be nice to the guy.’ And I’ve got a list of about 14 reasons why I shouldn’t be because of his play, but that stuck with me,” Maurice said. “The game has changed and the players, especially (because) we have such a young group, those interactions have to change. When I first started, you’d handle a man a whole lot different than you’re handling them now.”
Wheeler admitted prior to the season that he, too, has had to reassess how he approaches some of the younger players on the team. He feels Maurice has evolved every year he’s played under him.
“There’s no question,” Wheeler said. “You don’t last as long in this league as Paul has if you’re not constantly changing.”
Wheeler, who has enjoyed his best seasons, statistically and otherwise, under the tutelage of Maurice, said the coach has found a great way of holding his players accountable while also treating them like people.
“You have to treat people a certain way,” Wheeler said. “You can’t just stand overtop and hover over and look down on everyone and talk down to people because no one is going to respect you if you don’t treat them with at least a little bit of respect no matter the situation.”