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Jurco knows he must do more

July 24, 2015, 8:09 PM ET [29 Comments]
Bob Duff
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
You don’t require a PhD in hockey to recognize that Tomas Jurco’s 2014-15 campaign was a disappointment.

All you have to do is ask Jurco and he will tell you.

“It wasn’t a great season for me,” right-winger Jurco said of his sophomore campaign with the Detroit Red Wings. “I know that.”

Jurco, Detroit’s final remaining unsigned restricted free agent, agreed to terms with the team Friday on a two-year deal that will pay him $900,000 per season and Jurco understands he’ll have to perform better than the numbers he put up last season in order to justify that stipend.

After producing decent 8-7-15 totals in 36 games as a rookie in 2013-14, Jurco’s first full season as an NHLer was a disappointment. He lit the lamp just three times and added 15 assists in 63 games.

“I had a good first season,” Jurco, 22, said. “I scored eight goals in only 30-something games.”

Last season, whether he was a victim of the sophomore jinx, or hampered by a persistent back issue, Jurco, a two-time 30-goal scorer as a junior with the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs, clearly regressed from an offensive standpoint, though he’s trying his best to turn his struggles into a positive.

“Maybe it was good for me to – I wouldn’t say wake up,” Jurco tried to explain. “How would I say? To realize that it’s not easy.

“I was trying to have a good season, it just didn’t go so well. Some years it goes well, some years it doesn’t go well.”

A new pact in hand and with two years to turn it around, Jurco feels confident that he will once again find his scoring touch.

“I’m going to be a hungry person at the start of the season,” Jurco said. “Come next year I’ll be ready to have a great season and score more goals and help the team more.”

Cap Issues
Now that the Wings have all of their players under contract, the next mission will be to get under the NHL salary cap of $71.4 million.

Jurco’s deal leaves the Wings with $71.6 million in total salary tied up in 24 players (15 forwards, seven defensemen, two goalies) at the NHL level. That’s slightly over the cap and one player more than they are allowed to have on tap when the season gets underway Oct. 9 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

With center Pavel Datsyuk (ankle surgery) expected to begin the season on injured reserve, that would briefly solve both of Detroit’s issues, and there’s also the chance that forward Johan Franzen (post-concussion syndrome) could find himself on IR as well.

Regardless, it would seem likely that the Wings will make some sort of roster transaction prior to the start of the season, since general manager Ken Holland has already indicated that he wants at least one of his young defensive prospects (Alexey Marchenko, Xavier Ouellet) to begin the season in Detroit.

Blashill Fan
Jurco played for new Wings coach Jeff Blashill with AHL Grand Rapids, winning a Calder Cup title in 2012-13, and he’s excited to play for his old boss in the big leagues.

“I love Blash,” Jurco said. “He just understands the game really well. He’s a really good guy and you can talk to him and he understands you a person.

“Great guy, great coach, and I only have great memories of him.”

Jurco, who endured similar transitional struggles going from junior to the AHL to what he endured in Detroit last season, gives Blashill much of the credit for putting him on the right path to get to the NHL.

“Yeah, he’s a really good talker and one of the best things about him, the things that he actually shows you, every time he showed me something it was like ‘You are right. I can do it differently,’” Jurco said. “He just understands it so well. He knows what the players can do a little differently.

“He’s a great coach.”

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