It has been about a month, but the Olympic Break is over and the Coyotes are in Winnipeg about to play their first game since they lost 2-1 to the Dallas Stars back at the beginning of the month.

I for one am psyched the NHL is finally back. I found the Olympics over-hyped, pointless and worst of all, extremely boring. The only exciting game of the tournament was a 1-0 game that featured almost no scoring chances. Everything from the style the teams played, to the lack of intensity, the scheduling and the complete absence of physical play was atrocious. Let’s just admit it: The Olympics sucked. International hockey is a farce with a horrendously unbalanced competition level and I honestly can’t see one positive that came out of these games. Zero Stars is my rating. Not only should the NHL never go back to the Olympics, international hockey should be abolished as it is a completely pointless waste of time.

Ah yes, the NHL is back.

The Jets have been hot since they fired Claude Noel and hired Paul Maurice earlier this year. No matter what you think, who the coach is is not that big of a deal. Replace the worst coach in the NHL at any given time with the last guy to win the Jack Adams trophy, and how much difference would you really see? My guess is that it is marginal, at best. Most coaches seem to choose their style of play around the roster they have and then act accordingly, so, outside of short-term psychological factors, I don’t think changing coaches has any real impact on a team long-term. Or rather, there is an impact, but it pales in comparison to upgrading even fringe players. Yes, replace me with Scotty Bowman and there will be a huge difference, however, replace anyone currently qualified to coach in the NHL with Scotty Bowmen and I predict the results wouldn’t even be noticeable after a month.

This brings us to the Winnipeg Jets. They are on fire since they got a new coach, outside of the Leafs, maybe the hottest team in the league for the last little while.

Unfortunately, they are still the same team that played so horribly that the coach got fired in the first place. If you think that Paul Maurice is magical, then you should put some money on the Jets. If you are a reasonable person, I suggest you do not.

They simply cannot sustain this pace. Their roster just isn’t good enough. I like some of their building blocks, but the problem with the team seems to start at their military logo and seep down throughout the franchise: it is just too conservative and this seems to be alienating their players. Is this the team? The city? Is it my imagination? I have no idea, but it seems that a lot of their players are being ran out of town for things that don’t seem to have anything to do with hockey.

Evander Kane? Dustin Byfuglien? You build around these guys. Why in the world would they be available in trade? It seems to me there is something wrong with the Jets franchise in this regard. You don’t berate them for their attitudes and subject them to trade rumors that seem predicated on their not being typical boring, button-down, cliché-ridden, platitude spouting hockey players. If I was either of these guys I would be trying to bolt for the door. I don’t know if it’s just small town mentality, the franchise being too backward thinking, the media blowing every little thing out of proportion, or what? I am just an outsider wondering how an exciting new franchise seems to be perpetually on the verge of dumping its best players. I suspect it is probably a mixture of all these factors, which, combined with the atrocious start to the season, lead to the team bottoming out and firing their coach.

It actually makes sense that, if Maurice could get these distractions under control, the team would improve its play. This would be an argument in favor of the Jets sustaining their run and maybe making a late push for the playoffs. Unfortunately, I think that explains everything just a little too nicely. Probably, Maurice could alleviate some of these pressures, and probably just the change has the team nicely motivated, but any kind of real problems cannot be fixed overnight just by changing the coach, and this team just doesn’t have the roster to be among the league’s elite like they have been lately. They haven’t changed any players, just the coach.

The Jets handily beat the Coyotes in their first game under Maurice and so, were I a betting man, I would take the Coyotes tonight, figuring that two teams this evenly matched and this close in the standings are bound to split games, and having lost the last one, the Coyotes should be extra motivated to win this one. This, despite the return to the lineup of the hopefully future Coyote Evander Kane. The Coyotes are fully healthy and Mike Smith should get the nod in goal, but the real reason to tune into tonight’s game is the probable NHL debut of prized Coyotes prospect Brandon Gormley, who was called up last week during the break.

Thanks for reading,
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