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Balancing Act- the forwards. |
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Balancing Act- the forwards.
The Winnipeg Jets are going to be looking for some balance and if we go back to words said by Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff it might come at the expense of veterans, or not. What we don’t really know is how the GM is going to balance this roster if he expects it to possibly be younger than it was this past season.
Think about this scenarios for a minute, there is a chance the roster could be younger (as an average age) but how does that happen without trades or waivers?
While the World Cup of Hockey is set to begin soon with Jets fans certainly interesting in the play of Laine, Scheifele, Trouba, Hellebuck, Wheeler and others, the GM will be struggling with some inevitable decisions.
How does one improve the team when you have older, fading veterans that somehow cling to roster spots year after year?
Yes, this is talk about Mark Stuart and Chris Thorburn and Anthony Peluso. But in principal, a GM needs to avoid these situations so that when the time and opportunity present itself the openings can be there.
Without getting into lines let’s put in the locks for the Jets roster
Locks
Wheeler
Little
Scheifele
Ehlers
Stafford
Perreault
Liklies
Laine
Dano
Armia
Lowry
Questions
Copp
Thorburn
Burmistrov
Howden
Mathias
Lipom
Lemieux
Petan
Tanev
Peluso
That’s 18 players and with a 22 man roster for opening night and no defence accounted for, some one(s) are going to be gone. Again this is not an exercise in creating a roster and lines it’s the process of finding balance based on the idea that more change (not sure how much) is coming to the Jets roster compared to last year.
The first part that has to happen is that some of those players have to make themselves more valuable than Peluso and Thorburn in the eyes of Paul Maurice, and perhaps Cheveldayoff. Who is that going to be?
If you want to match up I see it like this:
Lipon vs Peluso
Howden vs Mathias vs Burmistrov vs Copp vs Thorburn
Tanev, Petan and Lemieux are most likely AHL bound and the battle, as seen above, between Lipon and Peluso does not mean that the winner is assured of a spot.
In all honesty I think Thorburn is here to stay and depending on the Jets standings come the trade deadline I could see him being moved if what Chevy says is true, ‘that we get calls every deadline for Chris Thorburn’.
So the real battle come down to 4 centres for the 3rd and 4th lines and this should not come as a surprise to Jets fans. Last season the same problem that has affected the Jets since their arrival from Atlanta was still there: depth in the bottom 6. When injuries hit and the team was tested and the first to move up were Perreault and Stafford, if they were no there already. Late in the season it got worse and while there were signs for optimism the GM was taking no chances and brought in Howden and Mathias.
In theory either one of these guys could be in the AHL and coach Paul Maurice as well as his boss need to make sure that those players feel as much heat and the likes of Lowry and Burmistrov and Copp for holding onto jobs.
So assume the waiver eligible players move down and now the tough decisions have to be made, the question is will they? Peluso might not pass through waivers, and while that might seem funny to some it’s an issue for a team that believes in value. How much ‘value’ are the Jets willing to risk in terms of players leaving for nothing.
Herein lies the balance issue. Chevy has to get players down and ice the best team- at least that’s the logical understanding and impression of what has to happen. So what kind of team do the Jets want, answering that question might be the start of how the coach and GM as well as armchair GMs figure out what the roster looks like.
The NHL is a copycat league. When one team wins the Stanley Cup others inevitably try to mimic that success model. Well Pittsburgh won it with speed and skill and while they are not the first to do that, they are perhaps the best version of that model to date, although the 2013 Blackhawks might disagree though. The bigger point here is that if Chevy is true to his words this might be the first real reveal of what he sees as the beginnings of a team that can challenge for a championship.
It’s likely that team does not have Peluso, and that Chris Thorburn’s days are numbered but that’s also up to what level of competition comes to camp. Somewhere is the balance between fast and skillful vs tough and skilful and that’s probably what Jets fans will discover as the roster takes form- just where the coach and GM want that balance.
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • 
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