SALT LAKE CITY — It was hard to miss the presence of Winnipeg Jets co-owner Mark Chipman on this just-completed road trip through St. Louis, Denver and Salt Lake City — one that produced a single point and pushed the team further into the NHL abyss.
Chipman doesn’t travel with the club as often as he once did, but his timing couldn’t have been better. He got an up-close look at everything that has gone wrong for the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winners, who have just six wins in the past 23 games to sit at 15-17-3.
“That’s 35 games, for me, of inconsistency throughout the games themselves or that might be individual players. In the remaining 47, that has to change,” Jets coach Scott Arniel told the Free Press on Sunday evening at Delta Center.
Melissa Majchrzak / The Associated Press
Jets’ defenceman Josh Morrissey is an elite blue-liner on a team stuck in a terrible rut.
Notably, Chipman was standing in the hallway outside the team’s locker room just a short distance away as the bench boss spoke with obvious frustration in his voice.
With the Jets now heading into a five-day holiday break — a period Arniel said he hopes includes some “inner soul-searching” for his players — it’s fair to wonder what awaits on the other side of Christmas.
When a team is languishing near the bottom of the standings with nearly half the season in the rear-view mirror, particularly one built with legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations, nothing should be off the table.
Fair or not, this is a results-oriented business. For a Jets team that is now fully healthy — something few around the league can claim — the excuses are gone.
And perhaps, so is the time for patience. Let’s explore the options:
1) FIRE SOMEONE: Arniel’s seat may be warming, and some of his recent in-game and lineup decisions have come under scrutiny.
Starting overtime Sunday with defensive centre Adam Lowry backfired in a big way, as Utah took full advantage and burned the Jets with speed and skill to score the winner 13 seconds into the three-on-three session.
It’s also fair to wonder whether players are still buying what Arniel is selling, given how often they’ve started games looking disorganized and borderline disinterested. Falling behind early and taking careless penalties have become familiar themes.
Sending Arniel packing, however, one year after he led the Jets to the best regular-season in franchise history and earned a Jack Adams Award nomination, would miss the point. He hasn’t forgotten how to coach. Why let everyone else off so easily?
Which brings us to Kevin Cheveldayoff, now in his 15th season running the team. He will soon become the NHL’s longest-serving general manager once Doug Armstrong retires in St. Louis after this season. Arniel is his fifth head coach, following Claude Noel, Paul Maurice, Dave Lowry (interim) and Rick Bowness.
Melissa Majchrzak / The Associated Press
Jets’ forward wing Gustav Nyquist shoots the puck over the Utah net during Sunday’s loss the the Mammoth.
It’s obvious to many that the current Jets roster isn’t nearly good enough. Cheveldayoff’s four free-agent signings last summer— Jonathan Toews, Gustav Nyquist, Tanner Pearson and Cole Koepke — have not worked out. Typically, three are now forming an unproductive fourth line, with the other sitting as a healthy scratch.
In a league getting faster and younger, the Jets got slower and older, and it shows night after night. Incredibly, not a single significant move has been made to address it as the losses pile up and the Jets slide further down the standings.
All of that would seemingly put the architect under fire, certainly in most if not all other NHL markets.
Chipman has previously suggested Cheveldayoff will outlast him in the organization, which doesn’t exactly hint at an appetite for change. Loyalty runs deep, and it would be surprising if both Arniel and Cheveldayoff aren’t given the chance to try to fix this.
2) MAKE A TRADE: This is where Cheveldayoff — assuming he’s still at the controls — must tread very carefully.
If the Jets are going to miss the playoffs, which looks more likely by the day, they’re better off failing spectacularly rather than marginally. The website MoneyPuck, which uses advanced statistics to track odds, currently gives the Jets a 28.6 per cent chance of qualifying for the post-season.
That’s not to say a deliberate, full-blown tank is the play, but an early first-round pick in a deep draft year could be exactly what this organization needs.
The Jets were reportedly sniffing around Seattle Kraken forward Mason Marchment, who ultimately went to the Columbus Blue Jackets last Friday for a second- and fourth-round pick.
That suggests some appetite to make a move, but at what cost? Pushing chips into the middle of the table right now feels futile, with the risks far outweighing the reward. Is there a single deal that suddenly fixes this team? Highly unlikely. The problems run far deeper.
At this point, becoming sellers rather than buyers may be the smarter move, recouping assets for expiring contracts, even if the return is limited to later-round picks.
3) PROMOTE FROM WITHIN: Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Manitoba Moose dressing room these days. Players down on the farm are surely seeing the issues with the big club and wondering why no one’s phone is ringing.
It’s genuinely baffling. The Jets have no shortage of underperforming skaters, while the AHL roster is filled with guys having solid seasons.
Yet only Brad Lambert, Nikita Chibrikov, Parker Ford and Elias Salomonsson have been given looks, and that was due to injuries and before things truly went south.
Now, with everyone healthy, there’s somehow no room. You get the sense Arniel is frustrated by this, based on his recent comment about only “being able to coach what I have here.”
The NHL roster freeze is now in effect and prevents any movement until the weekend. Once that lifts, the Jets could — and should — be shuffling the deck in some fashion, even if it means exposing a player or two to waivers.
4) MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO: Last, and we would suggest least.
Yes, doing nothing might improve draft lottery odds, but does the ticket-buying public have the patience to watch this continue?
This isn’t a brief slump. The Jets have been shaky from the outset, even during a 9-3-0 start that masked troubling underlying numbers suggesting it wouldn’t last. Standing pat isn’t sustainable.
As Arniel himself has said, this has been a season-long issue. It’s now a full-blown crisis, one that’s wasting strong years from core players like Connor Hellebuyck, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Josh Morrissey.
If nothing else, injecting fresh energy into a group that feels like it’s been waiting for something to happen could offer a glimmer of hope.
Otherwise, the “gloom and doom” Arniel referenced recently is only going to deepen.
www.winnipegfreepress.com/mikemcintyre
Mike McIntyre is a sports reporter whose primary role is covering the Winnipeg Jets. After graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College in 1995, he spent two years gaining experience at the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 1997, where he served on the crime and justice beat until 2016. Read more about Mike.
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