Tonight’s game against the Florida Panthers places two teams with different directions of momentum against each other. Florida visits Winnipeg coming off a 5-1 victory over the Leafs while Winnipeg has limped home after giving up another lead and falling apart in the third period, again.
Coach Claude Noel has come out and stated his position over the play of Dustin Byfuglien, a divisive topic amongst fans and media. Both Wheeler and Little have come off early season scoring slumps with goals in the last game against Buffalo. Ondrej Pavelec has done as much as he can to keep his team in games, and call-ups Festerling and Flood have filled in admirably. Once again it’s a mixed bag of good and bad for the Jets.
The comforts, or in this case shock, of coming home can have an effect too as Winnipeg now has some snow on the ground along with early morning minus temperatures. November in Atlanta is far kinder I’ve been told. The team was also away for two weeks and life comes into play upon returning home. The WAGS want some attention, and deserve it, kids want to see dad and the myriad of media requests take over too. Oh there is one day off before you are at it again versus a division rival coming off a big road win. It's never easy.
The Jets are slowly shaping an identity for the fans, and most fans are coming to the realization of what they have in this team. The Jets are a Potpourri of sorts. There is a little of everything with them, some days you love the smell and on others it stinks to high heaven. The team has great goal tending on most nights, it has effective defense sometimes, and forwards who score with consistent irregularity.
Some people are fans of potpourri while others prefer a distinctive scent no matter what the occasion. The Jets are currently the former and their record would support that conclusion. The team is not quite dynamic enough for high scoring attack based hockey, nor is it a defensive powerhouse designed to shut down the opposition. It lacks a distinctive physical game and does not have depth of skill for a puck possession style.
One observation that might have merit is the coaches are trying to improve in all areas and raise the level of play ‘across the board’. This task is a difficult one, it gives the players many things to consider when practicing and playing, the results can be mediocre and to date it has been.
The optimistic view within this mixed bag, the ‘potpourri’, is there are several good baseline skill sets to grow but a team is unlike a garden. Each player is not an individual seed, where by adding water and sunshine, will grow independently of the others. At fifteen games into the season some near definitive conclusions can be made about the Jets. One is they have to find one team trait and start to excel at it. Make this trait the core identity and base of the team, then work to improve the other aspects critical to team success.
This is a fan base that can handle the strong scent of potpourri right now. The fans will accept development as long as it comes with a clear goal in mind, perhaps even enjoying the various scents from the potpourri. However the longer potpourri lingers, more people tend to realize it stinks. It’s not stinky in Winnipeg yet, but this mixed bag will eventually start to smell foul if left sitting indefinitely. If that should happen the only option may be a Glade plugin to wipe away the stench entirely.
Enjoy the game.
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