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Burmistrov Waiver- Fans' Guide to 2017 |
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As reported by Sportsnet and Winnipeg Free Press the Jets have played Alexander Burmistrov on waivers today. Happy new year Burmi!
There's your first change...
Jets Fans Guide to 2017
It’s time to exorcise the memories of 2016 out of your mind. It’s over, and while the sting of a 6-2 loss to the Islanders remains fresh it’s but one of many losses in the final quarter of the season the Jets have had that should also sting.
That being said, it’s time to look forward and think about what the new year will bring.
Most Jets fans will simply fast forward to trade deadline and then again to the NHL Entry Draft, Expansion Draft and then July first, UFA period. Soon after it will be training camp and then the cycle will begin again. Throw in the possibility of a coach being fired and maybe a GM and there’s lots of reason for intrigue.
For some the hopes of appearing in the playoffs is yet again a pipe dream but still one of a few measuring points of success. In all likelihood that kind of appearance is not happening for Winnipeg and fans will have to look for smaller, less significant events for some sort of positive affirmation. After all, we’ve heard that building a championship team is a ‘process’ for six years now. I guess we should hope that some one eventually asks the architect how long the process is supposed to take?
What we do know, and I’m not the originator in this observation by any means, is that the Jets are a low event team. That’s a consensus observation and backed by data. At even strength, or 5 vs 5, the Jets hold their own for the most part. Their number one goalie has a save percentage in the higher third of league goalies, the Jets keep the puck well enough and they prevent shots and scoring chances against to a decent and manageable rate.
Where it, the other aspects of the game, falls apart is offence and special teams.
‘Yes, Pete we know. Thanks for that Captain Obvious.’
It’s these areas that Jets fans can look and hope improvement comes. Therein lies the problem that many Jets fans have, they are tired of hoping.
The problems are obvious.
The Jets cannot move the puck up the ice with any efficiency, thus they are either easy to defend against because of their system or their system is not effective. Look for this to change- it simply cannot be one of those things a team simply ‘plays it way out of’ because there are fundamental problems.
The power play units are a mess of personnel and planning. Many ask why the best young shooter in the game Patrik Laine is not on the top unit and it’s a fair question. Why does the PP unit never change it’s formation or puck movement from some sort of umbrella style? Why does it not mimic other team’s systems who have a shooter like Laine? Hello Washington??
As for the penalty kill, this one still seems a bit of mystery for many. However, why is it so passive? Look at how teams play the Jets, a challenge to the puck carrier almost instantly. Is there no other way than a passive box?
The answers to all of these issues might be a bit muddy or uncertain to some while for others they are perhaps crystal clear. Either way it’s troubling because if it’s not obvious, are the coaches lulled into seeing minor tweaks over fundamental changes? If there are obvious points then why are they not being addressed, that’s the even bigger issue.
Another problem, away from the team, is that some would suggest the team’s problems are so deep that there’s no easy way to ask about them. Imagine one of the many Jets beat reporters asking Maurice about why his break out system is so easily defended against. Then a follow-up question about the PP and PK units and then again after each loss due to this repeating challenge.
Recently we saw what happens when asked about the goalie selection process when Hutch was chosen after the Jets beat the Blackhawks with Hellebuyck in net. Try making sense of that answer from Maurice and then pushing forward on other issues. It gets the reporter no closer to the truth and further from where he or she needs to be to do his job.
Like it or not, the fundamental way our media works now has teams on the defensive and ready to block out independent media when they push too much. Add in all the vehicles to produce and distribute content and it’s a messy situation.
Knowing all of this, what can Jets fans look for in 2017, I’d say change. Change is coming but like all things with the Winnipeg Jets don’t try to pretend you know what it will be and when it’s coming.
The team is starting to look an awful lot like it did three years ago, lost most nights and a coach without an honest, or too honest, an explanation. The Jets have roughly a month or until the All-Star game to turn a few things around, to show that the results are going to get better because they are better.
The owner, who the GM/President reports too, has to decide if he wants Kevin Cheveldayoff and his head coach Paul Maurice entering next season as lame duck hires. Two key pieces of management without a contract following the 2017-18 season. That would send a message and it’s likely something that 2017 year will determine.
The GM has to realize that he either has the right core of players or not. This is one of the youngest teams in the league and if he/they are committing to youth have they made the right choices? This kind of decision is tough when measuring youth because that requires time but remember this team made the playoffs by acquiring decent affordable vets to help them.
The coach has to see that something he/they are building is not working or he likely won’t be working. A team cannot survive in the NHL without an obsessive adherence to defensive systems and goaltending when you cannot create offence, score on the PP or keep goals out on PK. This change and other coming one way or another.
These changes, while simply surmised possibilities, are coming. The status quo is not good enough and with two key contracts coming up for renewal, mostly likely before the start of 2017, the pressure is on now. While Paul Maurice might say the team is starting to feel desperation, he and his boss should too because what they have built is not much of anything right now. Good luck (Patrik Laine) and hope (that the youth pans out) is not much of a plan but if there is more it seems we are not aware, or cannot see it. While the regular key events of the year have some added interest with the expansion draft, these are the tell tales of what the Jets might be thinking. Add in the contract status of Cheveldayoff and Maurice along with probably mediocre or less team performance and something will give. There’s simply not enough that’s going ‘right’ to not make change.
So Jets fans, your guide to 2017 is to watch closely. Hear what’s said, how it’s said and what you see on the ice. Make your notes, compare them and realize that the conditions are set for change. The opportunities are there, as they are every year, and after six seasons of similar results the Jets are positioned to deal with change. How and when they deal is what 2017 will be all about.
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • 
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