What’s Actually Wrong With the Winnipeg Jets?

What’s Actually Wrong With the Winnipeg Jets?

[Music] Let’s welcome in Maratesh from the Athletic. And uh Marat, we’ve had a lot of great chats on this show over the years. I’m not sure we’ve ever had one coming off as ugly as a game as we just saw from the Winnipeg Jets last night. First off, just thoughts on uh what the heck that was in Buffalo last night. Yeah, it was an embarrassing game for the Winnipeg Jets hockey club. It was a situation where not a single Jets player was immune to the malaise in Buffalo on Monday night. It was a situation where the Jets were outclassed from the get by one of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference because they were quicker because they executed their game plan and because the Winnipeg Jets didn’t come close to it and for it to come on the heels of a one four inone stretch of play when they’re talking about hey we won one in a row against Nashville where they were just holding on for dear life in that third period. It makes perfect sense that Adam Lowry called a players only meeting. This is a dire moment in the Winnipeg Jets season and they got embarrassed and outclassed by the Buffalo Sabres last night, which should not be a sentence you get to say about a team with Stanley Cup ambitions. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I was just talking to Steve Culius and I mean listen I maybe kind of you know tread more on the uh looking at the bright side than the dark side but I I trying to think of more embarrassing losses in the 2.0 era of the Jets and uh it’s a it’s a short list. Um and you know for that to happen in the aftermath of the weekend and listen we could talk about the win in Nashville. I mean, there were still some concerning things in that game from where I sat. And I mean, coming off the the game that Scott O’Neal straight up said his team didn’t show up for in on Friday in Carolina, uh, I would say you could have just taken what he had to say after the Carolina game and put it right there after last night’s game, but it was a very different tone of the coach. I mean, I guess you can only go to that so many times, but it was despondent. It was dejected. And to be honest, I totally understand why. That would have been a real tough three hours to sit back on the bench and watch your team perform the way the Jets did last night. Yeah. In a city where you personally have some of your best history, right? Like he’s a Sabres alumnus as much as he is a Winnipeg Jets alumnist. And for like the personal situation of being in that rink, in that city, and watching your team be able to execute the game plan that you laid out for him, right? like didn’t did he not tell Mike McIntyre that hey we showed him in the video we showed the Buffalo Sabres transition attack here are all the ways they’re going to get you here’s what we’re going to do about it and then find out that the team was unable or unwilling to do anything about it and just watch them get carved in transition over and over again even beyond the plays that went in to the Winnipeg Jets net yeah you’re going to be despondent after that and you’re right too these are all people involved right like this is a human thing. You can only go to certain wells so many times and, you know, he’s trying to push one button by, you know, being a little bit more publicly critical of the team. He’s trying to push another button by by being clear about the game plan. At the end of the day, the players have to be able to execute. I don’t think they’ve tuned their coach out. We’re miles from that. They have to be able to get the job done. And if they’re not, as they have not done, well, then we got to talk about the roster. We got to talk about their inability to play at pace. We got to talk about how they’re not making plays at either blue line that helped them win hockey games. The way they give up their zone for free because the back pressure is so slow and the and the defense, there’s three out of six of them. You wouldn’t trust to play transition defense against a really high quality NHL club. They’ve got problems and whatever he’s been saying has not been enough to solve them. You know, there there were two things that kind of came out from from Arie and I just want your perspective on it. um you know f first of all the despondent nature of it um and just his tone but you know it’s very it’s not often that you hear a coach come out after the game and say straight up we embarrassed ourselves but often it is done more in the tone of the Friday game where you’re hot you’re pissed off afterwards and I’m not sure whether this was so clearly happening early in the game and there was a resignation to it by the end Morat But, you know, the we’re embarrassing ourselves. And then following it up with a question from Mike where he said, “Everything is on the table.” Um, I I can’t imagine it gets much worse than last night. And if you are bottoming out, if you are hitting rock bottom, which that better be from a Jets fans perspective, the obvious question is to what do the coaching staff and the general manager do moving forward because it’s very clear that that wasn’t even in the ballpark of an acceptable team effort or performance that we’ve seen last night. And that hasn’t been the only one over the course of the last month plus. Yeah. I Well, in in order, I guess. the despondence, the sadness, the tone, the the lack of fury in that in that particular statement. There is a there is a reasonable explanation that has nothing to do with how poorly they played. And that could be the fact that Adam Lowry called a players only meeting and they spoke at length and there’s a little bit of extra time that went by between that final buzzer and Scott Arneil speaking to media. It may be a case of where, you know, a lot of the rage had fussed itself out by that period of time just because extra time had passed. It also might be just a recognition that, hey, like they’re taking ownership of this, so I’m not going to go other than commenting on how bad the game is. I’m not going to go tear into them because clearly they’re at least doing this this players only meeting, which shows an acknowledgement of how poorly they played. Um, and so credit to Adam Lowry for trying to to to get something going and we’ll see how the Jets respond to that. So for me, whether he was loud and furious about it doesn’t really change anything for me. The fact is, um, he used the word embarrassed. And I think that the Winnipeg Jets, relative to their expectations for themselves, relative to what we understand their preparation to be and how well they played against Buffalo, embarrassed seems like a fine word. I’m not in the business of telling other people how to feel, but they got outclassed so badly. You would hope that they want more for themselves than what they gave. Um, and then the other business about everything on the table. Now, I wasn’t in the hallway or the room, so to speak, last night, right? So, take my interpretation with a grain of salt. By that’s that by that point in the interview, I I just kind of thought Scott Arneil was done being three-dimensional about his responses. And Mike asked, you know, hey, what could be on the table? and Scott said uh everything and that was meant to be a catchall. Hopefully though that is something that the Jets take seriously and you know every line is up for grads every every roster decision is up for grabs as well because you can only go to the players only meeting well so many times too. There has to be a turn in in the results and the performance. You know, it was about three weeks ago that the Jets lost 4-1 in Anaheim on that Sunday. And I remember doing the show the next day and I recounted conversations that I had with a couple of the guys that I was watching the game with as the Ducks skated, you know, just at a level that was so off of where the Jets were and they looked a little slow. And again, this was before a lot of the secondary scoring issues had really compounded as they’ve gone on for another 3 weeks. But I remember asking myself, I would kill to be in the room with Kevin Cheveloff right now as to what he is saying as he sees what’s like the way his team looks and the way some of the competition around the Western Conference is showing themselves. three weeks later as they’ve gone through this slump and you see a game like that last night. I mean, to me, I would imagine it would be as alarming as any performance he’s maybe seen on his watch. It would be certainly would be right up there. Um, I know he sat down with Mike on the road and said that the answers must come from within, but do you think that a game like that might move him more towards a place that he certainly hadn’t planned and really considered potentially being in. For me, maybe that’s a the door cracks open moment. And it’s just the only reason I say that is because I think that shovel day off is renowned for his patience and for his grind. You know, strengths, weaknesses, whatever. That’s one of the hallmarks of Kevin Shovel Day off. And as I understand it, unless I missed a standings update, they’re within a point, and I’m not saying that to be right. I’m just checking my memory. They’re within a point of the playoff cut line, right? There’s four teams to pass if they want to catch a wild card spot, which means they’ve got to put some wins together. catching four teams even though there’s just one point is is harder, right? There’s a lot more competition. So that that’s the scenario that they’re in. He still has a little bit of time to wait and see how the standings manifest themselves over the course of this month. And you know, you’ve got the Colorado Avalanche coming up. I think that’s December 19th. Can you imagine the team that played last night playing against the Colorado Avalanche and being shown what the class of the Western Conference looks like right now? If they’re out of the playoffs or in this stretch in this type of stretch by then, um, Chevy’s not going to be able to do anything about it. So, it’s in this kind of next few weeks probably where he’s got to step up. I don’t think he’d be there yet just based on the words that he said in that reported piece, based on his history. Um, but the Jets are at a point where they have to try new things, right? Like, I don’t think you can go back to the same lines and pairings. I don’t think you can go back to the exact same roster. If you’re if you fooled yourself into thinking that you beat Nashville, so the the roster that beat Nashville is automatically your best group of 18 skaters, then you’re you’re lying to yourself. Um that’s they’ve reached a scenario where it’s it’s go time on the consideration which in in Chevy speak means you know I think he’s still honestly going to hold to his word and be patient for a couple of weeks here. Yeah. I mean they’re uh yeah I don’t think that they’re going to blow this up and make some massive trade but I I I do think and I guess we can move on to where they go from here. I mean that lineup last night I mean obviously they weren’t playing anywhere close to what they are capable of but at the same point if you get you’re you know you’re so far behind the play and so much slower than a team like Buffalo like never mind the Avalanche in two and a half weeks like what about tomorrow night in Montreal against the Havs we just talked to Kulius about that that’s as young and exciting and fast a team as you’ll find right now in the NHL and that seems to be almost kryptonite for a Jets roster that has looked old and slow more often than not over the course of the last month plus. Um, you know, I had said yesterday, and listen, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Brad Lambert, you know, was dropping jaws in the four games that he played earlier on and, you know, hasn’t had a performance in the American Hockey League that says, “I’m way too good for this league right now. I should be in the NHL.” But he certainly is a player that adds some speed to your lineup. Uh I do wonder if there’s another shot with him maybe not playing on the fourth line, maybe elsewhere. And from the blue line, Morat at this point, I mean, how do you not just have Elias Salmonson in the in the lineup right now and and and let him run for a few a few games? I mean, it’s all the things that they thought they were getting from some veteran players are, frankly, things that I think are are are compounding the problems right now. I mean, if it’s not a trade, what can they do right now to maybe add some juice to this lineup, some speed, and hopefully change the way things looked last night and far too often in the past month? I hope you don’t kill me for this one. Going sort of working backwards from the trade deadline here, right? But here’s what I see. Trade deadline day. Either Winnipeg has fixed this stuff or it hasn’t. If it’s fixed this stuff, it can be buyers. It can send assets out. It can focus on the playoff run. If it hasn’t, it’s got to be tearing some things apart. It’s got to be looking at pending unrestricted free agents that playoff teams want that Winnipeg can’t use because they won’t be making the playoffs and and selling at that point. You rewind from that. you you move the calendar into January, let’s say, ahead of the Olympic break. Well, you’ve got a reasonable sense by then of how close or far you are. If you’ve tried minor tweaks now in December and they haven’t worked, January is a time for one last guess. Maybe, you know, you see a team like Vancouver and everybody talks about Kefir Sherwood. That’s a type of player Winnipeg should be looking at. these mid tier players where you’re not breaking the bank because you don’t know that it’s worth doing that, but you’re still trying to show some belief in your team. And the types of moves that happened before that, let’s say in December, are a little more minor. That’s okay. Hey, is the goalending good enough? I’m not sure. Maybe we’ve got to make a phone call about Laurent Brasis if he’s up to speed despite missing so much time with energy. I think they’re going to try things within, but if it’s not that type of minor deal, then it’s got to be shifting people into and out of the lineup in this next little stretch of play. I think Winnipeg’s first move is to run with the horses that got them to this stage to to continue to lean on the veterans and say, “Hey, this is plan A. Make it work or don’t.” Um, we’ve probably reached the point and certainly by Montreal if something like they have to have thought that they’ve reached the point where this is not working. they need some change. But coming out of a captain’s meeting, your first play is to say, “Okay, you you stepped up. You would identify these things. This is player driven. Now you deliver.” So I’m not sure that the big moves, the the call Lambert up, the change in the roster construction happens until you’ve given them a game. Uh I don’t think you wait more than a week either. Um Lambert I’m not in on. I I don’t think he showed nearly enough and I think that he’s not showing enough at the AHL to to be the solution here. Salammonson I am in on. I think he moves the puck better than NHL defenseman who are dressing on this roster more frequently than he is. And I guess the last thing I’ll say, my answers are always so long. Is this at some point one of the justifications somebody will give for playing the veterans is, well, the young guys haven’t earned it yet. Think about respect. Think about the embarrassment of these AHL players playing above NHL veterans who are supposed to be able to get this done. And at some point, I’m not there yet today. Despite that horrible loss, at some point the answer is going to be let them be embarrassed because this is meant to be a cup contending year for the Winnipeg Jets. That’s what they circled as their goal in September. If they can’t get there, well then let the optics look ugly as the younger and faster players get their chance. I I listen I I couldn’t agree more and and again like when I bring up Brad Lambert as I prefaced it it’s not like he’s blown me away with anything that happened. I’m just looking and he’s a guy that comes to mind that you know is a young player they’ve got high hopes for that can skate at the level of these other teams that they’re playing for right now. I mean, you know, we heard it last night on the on the broadcast, but I mean, it was it was wild to see guys that don’t see the Jets very often. And again, at maybe their worst moment of the season, hopefully, but just speak about how how slow the team look compared to the Buffalo Sabres. And then you add in Morat, as you mentioned, the ease of transition of Buffalo last night to get the puck in their own end, whip it to the other defenseman, make one pass, and then be in and be dangerous on the rush. Um, I mean, it’s very clear that the guys right now, the veterans, if you will, just simply aren’t getting it done. And when you’re not defending and nobody’s scoring, there’s a certain amount of time that you can go before you have to do something else. 100%. And the clockwork of that transition play, like Winnipeg may have instructed its players to play a certain way in the neutral zone and slow down the Buffalo Sabres. Winnipeg didn’t make it to the neutral zone. Winnipeg’s forwards got upbeat with a single pass. Its defensemen were at their own blue line. there was this enormous gap of space and it was just gang busters. The Sabres coming down the ice over and over again. You look at that transition play, Winnipeg doesn’t get to the middle of the ice cuz they’re not fast enough or organized enough or making the right reads to to be in those spaces. And that’s a problem that like I don’t know, you might not be able to X and O’s your way out of. Then if you come to that conclusion, then you got to start making some of those changes and start working on pace because I mean like you say, Carolina’s game wasn’t so good. The Nashville win wasn’t so good. There were a few games that they lost a couple weeks ago where they looked better than the result, but this is not that anymore. The turnaround needs to come a whole lot faster than the Winnipeg Jets look like they can play. If we’re not talking about Brad Lambert, um when you look at the Moose, um it listen, I mean, obviously Chibberov and and um and Parker Ford would probably be near the top of the list. They were the ones on the roster at the beginning of the season, but I do think of other guys that, you know, like Jad um Jared Anderson Dolan played in the playoffs last year. Um you know, Figimo had a strong game. He has some NHL experience. D Jeppe won a Calder Cup. he’s played at that level. Um, like with things being so dire, particularly amongst the ads of the guys that came in in the off season, how far off do you think they are from even if it’s a veteran player, a guy that’s playing well, that’s doing up, do they just go with a different look? And I guess there’s a lot involved in that because of your roster. What do you do with the guys that you weren’t playing? Who’s on? But um it hard to imagine if they’re not going to add anything via a trade, which is difficult to do at this point. And certainly I’m sure the vultures are circling right now knowing the situation the Winnipeg Jets are in. That level of desperation to find other players within from within to quote Kevin Chev and give a boost in a short period of time. Yeah. I mean could we be talking about firing up the Gus bus? Is that a, you know, do you reward a Danny Jilkin for becoming a player that the Moose can count on in all situations even though he would be maybe eighth in the pecking order coming out of camp? And like there is a there is a situation where you inject those players into the lineup. I do want to say in amongst all of this to the Winnipeg Jets credit, I don’t think that there are a lot of players who are cheating their effort level right now. I don’t think that this is a situation where the the slow older veteran group of players isn’t somehow trying to bring out the best in itself. I think it’s a realistic reflection on certain like certain weaknesses in their game and the overall lack of foot speed. The fact that it is metrically, literally, demographically the oldest and slowest team in the National Hockey League. You can’t effort your way out of that. And I think that the Winnipeg Jets uh a lot of these veteran players who could stand to sit aren’t cheating the game from that effort level point of view. And I do want to say that at the same time um you do often get spark plugs from younger players. So, you know, I might think of Parker Ford, I might think of Jared Anderson Dolan just knowing the the type of games that they have. um Gustoson in terms of straight line speed anyway, even though he doesn’t tend to generate when when he plays it. It makes some sense and you want players who are going to be able to play at a pace that lets them forch check and back check and impact the game in all three zones in ways that the veterans just aren’t doing right now. Um, Mora, what I think is probably most likely and whether this happens tomorrow, um, if they have a similar game or another result, they don’t get a win, maybe it happens Friday, um, you’d have to think that as much as they’ve been loathed to do it, we might see some significant shifting of the forward lines. If that h do you expect that to happen? And if it does, where do you think they start? Yeah, if they start with that in Montreal, I bet you it’s back to plan plan A by the end of the game. Like if they go back to the well that they’ve been playing with and they they keep Connor Leardi together, they keep some of the lines similar anyway, some of the foundational pieces and then they lose again, then I think you see it blown up properly in earnest for that game on Friday and probably it goes 60 minutes. This is just my guess. I don’t I don’t know that that’s what Scottal is thinking on this. Um, but yeah, if everything is on the table, you know, like Scott Arneal said, uh, that’s got to be an option as well. They’re certainly not winning games with Connor Cycling and Valardi winning their minutes. Uh, they didn’t win their minutes last night, but they’ve been really good for most of the season. They’ve created enough dangerous chances to outscore their opponents. But the Winnipeg Jets have been sitting on one productive line for an extended period of time, and any other team in the National Hockey League would have changed that by now. I know they want consistency. I know they think consistency is a big reason they had regular season success last year. They also had better players on the roster. That might be part of it. Um I think the ultimate thing to know or like one thing that I just I I keep thinking about this team is that I’ve heard coaches say before at this time of year, this is when the young and fast teams excel. By the time the game’s a grind down the stretch run, the veteran teams will do better. They’ll protect the middle of the ice. And we’ve seen like, do you remember when Montreal smoked the Jets four straight games by protecting the middle of the ice with old and slow veterans in the playoffs in round two? Oh yeah. Like there’s a theory that Winnipeg has enough smarts to be doing that to some other team in the playoffs. If they make the playoffs, they’re probably telling themselves, “Hey, the Florida Panthers linked in and look at what they did.” But these aren’t the frigin Florida Panthers. They’re not they don’t have an established series of deep playoff runs to lean on. So whatever you can say about what might or what will probably happen down the road or what you believe in a best case scenario when Taves is flying and Lowry’s back at his peak and all that sort of stuff. The reality is this team is not that and it hasn’t shown a lot of signs for us to believe that it is that in the last few weeks here. Um, and that needs change, that needs to be addressed, whether it’s the top line being broken up for a few minutes or a few games. You know, you can’t stare at these problems without feeling like you tried to do something and then feel like you’re competing in terms of a head coaching staff or even management at this stretch of the season. Now, I’ll preface this with saying I hope in a month or two I can look back at this program and laugh about how freaked out everybody was because they got it together and they’re doing exactly what they set out to be and they’re back into it. But I have a hard time pulling up the standings right now in the National Hockey League and particularly in the toughest division around the Central and look at the Avalanche who may never lose again. Dallas who might only lose when they play Colorado and Minnesota who has been right there with those teams for more than a month. Like we did our Chud Sports Power Poll the end of last week and I had those three teams as one, two, and three in the NHL. It almost looks Morat that you know, you know, barring, you know, a a big-time slump by a team like the Wild, I think Dallas and Colorado are going to be there. um or incredible run from Winnipeg. We’re actually starting to talk about, you know, can they get into a wildcard spot right now? And fortunately for them, the wild card teams right now are the Kraken and the Sharks. The Kraken are four games above 500. The Sharks are two and the Jets are are one right now. One game above 500 of the 13 and 12 and going in the wrong direction. um you know the landscape of this West if things don’t turn around soon again you’re basically now in a five or six team battle for one spot and that’s a really really tough place to be and like I’m kind of with you I’ve boughten into that you know what this team while right now for the regular season might not be as good but come playoff time they’ve got the things that have historically really helped teams win in the playoffs Uh, at this rate, we won’t be talking about playoffs. We’ll be talking about the draft lottery simulator in the last month. So, I mean, and that’s what was really that kind of got me last night. This was a team that should by any measure of looked desperate and played with a real sense of urgency and that wasn’t even remotely um there last night for the most part of the full 60 minutes despite what was happening. Yeah. Um, I think that that’s the frustration. You want a story you can believe in, right? Team like plays its self to bits. Choosing words here, but like a team really is obviously husting, drives play, creates chances, doesn’t bury, they get goalied, other team gets a bounce, blah blah blah, whatever. And they’ve given you some pro procedural process-based reason to believe that, hey, they’ve got it though. This team can do it. That’s a different feeling that I think Jets fans are feeling today where they didn’t give like you can go player by player. You can go to the best players in the world on Winnipeg’s roster from top to bottom and point at like fundamental things that didn’t work for them last night. You look at I’m I mean I kind of want to do it, but like let’s use Adam Lowry as one example. Have you ever seen an Adam Lowry led shutdown line get hemmed in its own zone quite as badly as they did at times last night? That is a foundation of Winnipeg Jets hockey. Um like Josh Moresy on the PK that as that first goal goes in, he’s had better battle than that. Um Mark Shley, Kyle Connor, Gabriel Ardi, the way they get carved, one pass beats all three. Um, the way that the slower defense, who we expect to be slower, got absolutely turnstyled in transition. The way that defensive stalwart Dylan Samberg was the bank pass into the goal off the rush. Um, the way that Vladislavesnikov, a hardworking player, gave the puck away leading to Dlo’s penalty. The way that Dlo started it all. That was just a terrible omen of what was to come. Soft play. Boom. Penalty. Power play goal. Boom. Another stick infraction for Dylan Dlo who’s second only to Logan Stanley in minor penalties for the Jets this year. And it’s showing some of the ways like he’s not been beat horribly in transition like he had been a couple times this time a year ago. But those penalties are a problem. That Nomesticov giveaway was a problem. I think it’s Nino Nether who puts the puck off a skate leading to the goal. That was it Josh Norris. Nope. who banked it in off of Militch’s back and in. That was a giveaway at the offensive blue line. You can go, every one of these players does good things for the Winnipeg Jets. This is not some sort of morality play where I’m trying to carve them to pieces, but every single one of them got beat by players they shouldn’t. Josh Norris shrugged Luke Shen off and dumped him in the corner effortlessly. Shen being the veteran who’s supposed to be strong enough to handle all of this stuff. you can go tipto toe of the roster and and find reasons why they weren’t good enough last last night and haven’t shown those signs and I guess to actually get back to what you asked me or talking about playoffs and all these you need those moments to go Winnipeg’s way even if they’re losing to feel like you’ve got signs that you can believe in them and I think that Winnipeg’s belief from the fan base dropped off last night and their play earned that and that’s a Pretty sad thing about what’s supposed to be a really good hockey team. [Music]

The Winnipeg Jets followed up a win in Nashville with one of their most embarrassing losses in years — a brutal performance in Buffalo that raised serious questions about this team.

Murat Ates of The Athletic joins Andrew “Hustler” Paterson to break down what’s actually wrong with the Jets, why they’re getting exposed by speed and transition, and what the players-only meeting really says about the state of the room.

Is this just a bad stretch, or a deeper roster problem? Are lineup changes inevitable? And how long can patience last if the results don’t improve?

⬇️ Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Topics:
Intro & first reaction to Buffalo loss (00:00)
“Embarrassing” isn’t strong enough (01:10)
Jets exposed by speed & transition game (03:00)
Scott Arniel’s post-game tone explained (05:10)
Players-only meeting: does it matter? (06:00)
Everything is on the table — what does that mean? (07:00)
Cheveldayoff’s patience vs reality (08:30)
Why the Jets look old & slow (10:40)
Do lineup changes have to come now? (12:00)
Young players who could inject speed (18:20)
Breaking up the top line discussion (21:00)
Can this still be fixed — or is it too late? (23:40)

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