Billeck: I had an interesting, and I would suggest, quite revealing back and forth with #NHLJets head coach Rick Bowness today regarding committment and motivation of his team.

33 comments

1. What a strange scenario. You’d think to be a regular in the NHL you’d have to be extremely competitive and motivated. I guess for some guys they need something extra for motivation once they got a payday. Normally I think a team could handle one of these types but it sounds like we have multiple.

2. Big fuckin ooof right there. Not that it’s not apparent to fans but pretty much stomps out any “maybe it’s a nagging injury” talk

3. Time to blow this shit up. Get these babies out of here and bring in some men who want to play hockey.

4. So essentially he is saying our top guys just don’t give a fuck and are waiting for summer in the Bahamas or wherever the hell they go.

5. Wowzers

6. answers given by a 2nd grade teacher at their job performance review or head coach of NHL team full of grown multi-millionaires? you decide

7. Fuck that’s disheartening.

8. “Yup. That’s what we’re dealing with.”

   What we are dealing with is a bunch of guys paid to play hard who are instead trying to autopilot into the playoffs. Even when they win, the games are ugly. They would be well below the playoff line if they were playing like this all year. This is not the core we need here. I say keep Morrissey, Ehlers, and Helley if they want to stay. Blow up the rest and rebuild.

   I can’t imagine what Nino and Namestnikov’s impressions are walking into this mess. They were supposed to be depth pieces and are having to do a lot more because the rest just won’t.

9. Crazy how a bit of adversity with roughly 3/4 of the season behind them rattled the so-called veterans of this group to the point they ostensibly gave up on the season.

   One of the worst records since the all-star break and practically no improvement in their game since then. I couldn’t even imagine how worse off this team would be without Hellebuyck.

   Maybe try a new approach, Bones. What you’ve been doing clearly isn’t hitting home. And time is running out.

10. Yep, we’ve reached the point of the season where I literally can’t stomach games anymore cause this attitude is so obvious on the ice.

11. #redesignrebuildreclaim

12. Maybe this is him trying something new to motivate them.

    Edit: I’d bet my bottom dollar that this IS him trying one last Hail Mary to motivate the team.

    The only way they make the playoffs and have confidence in the playoffs is if he makes them mad.

13. What. The. Fuck.

    Pretty damn revealing. What is with this core. Buncha fuckin divas. If Bones has to walk on eggshells around these divas in fear of shattering their fragile egos, then how does that look to the rest of the team who isn’t being babied? No wonder this dressing room’s a mess.

    Players keep preaching on sticking together, but fuck that shit. These children need to be benched. Put away the kid gloves. Bench em and hear let them cry. This core isn’t gonna do shit if we manage to sneak into the playoffs anyway, so it’s now or never to try something drastic… It has to come from top down. This is on Bones and/or Chevy if he’s not allowing that to happen. I thought Bones had benched the top guys in Dallas too… Was rly hoping he’d be able to straighten these children out.

    This pretty much confirms a few of our core veterans are essentially holding the locker room hostage. No wonder Laine wanted out. I’m not about to speculate on who it is, but I think we all know…

    Furthermore Nikolaj Ehlers must be on PP1

14. Keep 44, blow up the rest.

15. Put me in coach, I’ll give it 110%

16. Out of Schiefele, Wheeler, etc who needs to go?

17. Fucking yikes

18. That’s NHL NHL Jets!

19. Bones isn’t doing much to help the situation by benching guys have decent seasons like Schmidt, and refusing to even limit pionks, Connor’s, scheifeles ice time

20. If our fans still had any life in them, they could start a “Diva” chant or something. Get on these guys.

21. Load the entire team on two buses for the next away games. Let them sort it out amongst themselves over the endless road hours. Include Chipman and Chevy as lambs.

22. Fucking bench them. Put in Axel and Kuhlman and Gustaffson. This is totally embarassing.

23. There it is. Plain as day, finally. Fuck that suuuuucks.

24. This team is in a unique position where a lot of their core is expiring in the next 2 seasons. This should make it easier than usual to ship out guys like 55, 26, 80 if he won’t extend long term, 37 if he won’t re sign, and shed some of the dead salary weight. This team could take the route of a competitive retool, but who knows if that’s what the will do

25. I know they won last night, but I watched the game… until I couldn’t… something is happening with that team, and I don’t know what it is. But they aren’t much fun to watch.

26. so…….. whos the locker room cancer?

    -Ron Wharton

27. Didn’t St. Louis do a retool back in 2017-2018 when they had the same situation? If I recall, St. Louis wanted to shake up the core group so they traded Paul Stasny to send a message.

    Maybe I’m not remembering things properly though and just desperately wanting Chevy to do something that addresses the problem.

28. Niederreiter is outplaying this entire roster except for maybe Barron and Lowry.

29. How many coaches with the same on ice play is needed before serious changes to the roster happen?
    I have said for year and years wheeler needs to go. In my eyes he has been the biggest issue.
    That said he isn’t the only issue. Scheifele is a big problem as well.
    Lord knows who else is an issue.
    Enough is enough.

30. Put the 1st line down to the 4th and 2nd line down to the 3rd see how motivated they r with 6 to 8 mins a night

31. We can’t rid ourselves of Scheifele quickly enough. Never thought id say that years back with his contract being so team friendly. But he’s a black hole of negativity, swearing or not.

32. Sometimes it’s hard to watch this game. It’s like they’re just going through the motions until they can hit the links

33. This adds up… The bottom lines are playing more motivated than the top lines because they haven’t achieved millionaire/regular status.