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Jets officially announce Rick Bowness as Head Coach, 2-year deal |
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It has been a little while since we have talked about the Jets here, and we have lots to catch up on. I hope everybody is enjoying their long weekend, celebrating Canada Day and the 4th of July, if you happen to celebrate these days.
Some breaking news has just come out of Winnipeg as the Jets have officially announced the hiring of Rick Bowness, who has signed a 2 year, $5m deal with the Jets. Bowness stepped down out of Dallas less than two years after bringing the team to the Stanley Cup Finals. When Bowness stepped down, he stated that he did so to give the Stars a new direction to take with a new head coach.
"I'm appreciative of this chance presented to me by Kevin Cheveldayoff, Mark Chipman and the ownership group. We have an exciting group of talented young players with the Jets. So now my focus immediately turns to what it will take to get back into the Stanley Cup playoffs." (Rick Bowness quote, via NHL.com)
I see this as Rick Bowness saying that the organization does not seem to be looking at a rebuild, despite the rumours surrounding Pierre-Luc Dubois, Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler, and Brendan Dillon.
Some may look at Bowness's record of 212-351-28 (and 48 ties) as a clear "stay away" sign on his chest, but you have to remember that Bowness's first years coaching included 4 years coaching the expansion Ottawa Senators, who had a combined 39 wins in 235 games. No coach can be blamed for that, they had horrible roster construction.
Bowness has had a lot of recent success though, after taking over for Jim Montgomery in Dallas in the 2019-20 season. Obviously, he took the Stars to game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final in the playoff bubble, but then missed the playoffs by 4 points in 2020-21. There is a bit of an asterisk next to that one, as the Dallas Stars were among the leagues teams that got hit with COVID-19 the hardest. I know, I know, every team struggled with it, but Dallas more than others that season. This past season, the Stars took the Flames to game 7 in the first round, and while the Flames were clearly the better team headed into it, that series was the Jake Ottinger show. The Stars played some really tight defense in front of the goaltender, but Ottinger was phenomenal, but the Stars just couldn't get by the Flames.
I don't see much importance in covering the past coaching history for Bowness, as he coached 20 games in the 2003-04 season with the Coyotes, and then the Islanders in the late 90's. How he did then isn't relavant to how he is now.
Bowness likes his defense, looking at Dallas with Heiskanen, Klingberg, Lindell, and then added Suter. This matches up well to what he will have (as of today, at least) in Winnipeg. With Morrissey, Pionk, DeMelo, and Dillon leading the top-4, thats a pretty solid group. I would argue it is close to a top 10 group of defenseman, but they are missing that tru #1 star defenseman like Dallas had in Heiskanen.
As for the forward group, Bowness has a lot more to play with here. Again, this is very unlikely to be the group he gets in October, but having Connor, Elhers, Scheifele, Wheeler, and Dubois leading the way up front is a lot more than he had in Dallas. Seguin and Benn have had great careers, but age has caught up to them, and their game's have started to fall off significantly. Could this be in part with Bowness's coaching style? Maybe, but I am not so sure of that, personally. They had some young guys come up and thrive, like Roope Hintz, and Jason Robertson, but there was always just a few missing pieces.
I am giving Bowness the time of day here in Winnipeg, and I think that he can make for a great fit, but I could also see it working not so well. We will see.
Thank you for reading, let me know your thoughts on the hiring, and what you expect out of Rick Bowness. Have a great afternoon!
Jacob
Winnipeg Jets Blogger • 
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