Ch-ch-ch-Changes…or not.
Change is a tough pill for many to swallow. It’s one of the key principals most successful organizations manage well while conversely being one that unsuccessful organizations manage poorly. Look at the Canucks- a team and organization in a state of change one that we will watch closely to see what is done and how the results arrive.
The Jets are this kind of team too but in a different capacity and hopefully for fans a different trajectory. The map and process to change is where fans’ concern should be when looking at the Jets. Before that though, understanding the ‘appetite for change’ may be a prudent exercise.
Assume for a moment that the Jets team is on pace to the strategic plan. The tactics are paying off and the momentum is moving the franchise in the desired direction. Is there a reason for change at all? That may be a hard pill to swallow for many fans right now after a third consecutive season in Winnipeg of looking at the NHL playoffs without the Jets. This reality might be entirely accurate and the desired outcome.
Now assume for a moment that in the past three seasons this team has come close in spite of it’s shortcomings, holes, and other misfit elements. Whether or not the option to make a move to fill a hole was available or not is irrelevant in this discussion. Why? Because management would be reacting to an illusion, a vision of an oasis in an otherwise bleak landscape if they were to make moves. That is if you can suspend your beliefs and work along the premise in the first sentence of this paragraph.
It’s not hard to see that fans, media, (both online and traditional) have various opinions and thoughts on how a team should change and overcome the obvious obstacles it faces. Those are everywhere but do any of them matter? The question that we should all start with when looking at the Jets: what matters to True North Sports and Entertainment?
I come around to many different thoughts about the Jets trying to understand the various actions and inactions the team may make over the course of a year and now three seasons. In the end the conclusion simply comes back to “I don’t know what the expectations are so it’s very hard to make definitive judgment…. The one thing we do know from last year’s final summit with GM Kevin Cheveldayoff is that he ‘expects to compete for a playoff spot every year’ and ‘it’s win at all costs not win at any cost’.
This year, like the last two, the Jets competed for and came close to being a playoff team. They also paid a lot of money and some assets to achieve the wins necessary to compete. However they are no further ahead than in their inaugural season and the general assumption is there needs to be change. What if there isn’t? What will fans think if none happen and only the minor adjustments that come with every team in the off-season happen? That is likely too and fans need to accept it, although they do not have to agree.
What very few know is how the Jets measure to their core strategy, one that is not publicly available or documented. One assumes that all owners want their team in the playoffs but at what cost?
Today something a bit odd is happening. Paul Maurice is putting a team through it’s paces in practice with no pucks. This will be the last practice of the year. No Buff, Bogosian or Little. Ladd is in a non-contact jersey and Maurice is driving them like a rented mule. It prompted this exchange from Tim Campbell and Sara Orlesky:
Most demanding in 3 seasons “@FPTimCampbell: Most demanding #NHLJets practice of the season still going. #bagskate #bn…
— Sara Orlesky (@saraorlesky) April 9, 2014It’s evidence of a change that probably will be the biggest this off-season at least in my opinion. That change will be standards, accountability, structure and a known expectation of professionalism. The healthy scratch of Kane was not a message to that particular player it was a message to a team, the collective group. Just like this bag skate is today. Paul Maurice is in charge he picks no favourites and treats everyone with the same equal levels of respect and demands it back. Noel had his whipping boys in Wellwood, Burmistrov, Setoguchi and at times this season Scheifele. Maurice doles it out much differently. He was prepared to play in Toronto with an inferior line-up to improve the other areas that he believed we lacking within the group. Noel played his best option because he had no other option, or could no create one despite having the contract security Maurice does not.
While an extension for Maurice should be forthcoming, it’s not a done deal. There are other obstacles such as his family wanting to be in Winnipeg, or not. The uncertainty of his return has not changed his approach to piloting this group and that is probably the most telling thing about what will happen to the Jets going forward. The inmates won’t run the prison nor will the lunatics control the asylum, those days are long gone.
With a 90+ minute skate going on right now, players gassing hard on the ice one thing is clear they are not dictating the team anymore.
Yes there may be changes with certain players going and fresh faces coming but that’s already been tried with similar results. What we are slowly coming to understand is that perhaps TNSE tried too hard to make the Winnipeg Jets an appealing place be an NHL player. Instead the result was the Jets became a comfortable place to be and that’s a big difference.
The best way to provide incentive to change is to make the environment uncomfortable. If there are bad habits to break the atmosphere has to be intolerant of those habits. After three seasons the Jets still have many bad habits on and off the ice and Paul Maurice making sure they are not tolerated. That says to me he’s likely to be coming back and that he’s already embarking on the biggest change the Jets may see over another long off-season.
The message is pretty clear: the status quo has got to go. Whether that’s enough for the fans remains to be seen but remember, no one knows just what ownership expects from this franchise at this point. That’s aside from professionalism, something all highly paid athletes should practice at all times. Maurice seems to expect that too and this team appears to have fallen well short in his view.