Winnipeg Jets players and fans may have experienced some déjà vu this week as old friend Rick Bowness stepped in front of the cameras and microphones and lobbed a few verbal grenades at his current hockey club, the Columbus Blue Jackets.
A push for a playoff spot down the stretch, with “Bones” coming out of retirement to lead the way, went from promising to pathetic in short order. A season-ending 2-1 loss on home ice to the Washington Capitals was the last straw for the veteran head coach.
“These guys, they don’t care. Losing is not important enough to them. It doesn’t bother them,” fumed Bowness, who had to repeatedly pause to compose himself and seemed on the verge of tears at one point.
John Woods / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES
The Winnipeg Jets may need another dose of former head coach Rick Bowness’ (right) version of tough love — a remedy attempted by current head coach Scott Arniel (left) earlier this season.
That, folks, is about as damning as it gets in pro sports.
“All you gotta do is look at the stat sheet. Three hits, 23 giveaways. I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture,” Bowness vowed.
‘How would you do that?’ a local scribe asked him.
“There’s ways,” Bowness replied. “I’ve been around long enough to know I’ll find ways. I’ve had enough experience. We can deal with this. I’ve dealt with it before. If I’m back, we’ll straighten it out.”
Spoiler alert: he was talking about the Jets.
We remind you that Bowness inherited a fractured locker room and a broken culture when he came to Winnipeg in the summer of 2022. By the time he left after the 2023-24 campaign, his fingerprints were all over a rejuvenated organization that appeared to be pointed in the right direction as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.
It wasn’t easy, nor was it always pretty. Bowness spoke some cold, hard truths, both privately and at times publicly. Who can forget his memorable rant at the end of his first year, after the Jets were eliminated by the Vegas Golden Knights, which rubbed a few players, notably former captain Blake Wheeler, the wrong way.
It was a classic example of tough love. It also turned out to be a necessary wake-up call for a group that had been enjoying a bit of a country club lifestyle for too long. They needed to be challenged. They needed to be pushed.
Sound familiar, Columbus? Which brings us to the present day in Winnipeg.
There’s no question Bowness’ impact was still being felt a year ago, as his good friend and former associate coach Scott Arniel took the helm. Health issues at the time for both Bowness and his wife, Judy, led to his retirement.
Arniel’s Jets looked a lot like Bowness’ group, winning a second straight Jennings Trophy for defensive prowess and adding a division title, conference title and Presidents’ Trophy to the mix. A second-round playoff exit was disappointing, but the future still seemed bright.
This season has been an entirely different story. The Jets have gone into a full-blown nosedive down the NHL standings and will finish somewhere between sixth- and ninth-worst in the league, depending on how the final two days play out. The only thing they’re contending for is a top draft pick.
After giving up 198 goals in Bowness’ final year and just 190 in Arniel’s first, Winnipeg has surrendered 250 this year, with Thursday’s home finale against the San Jose Sharks looming. Add in the fact they’ve scored 47 fewer goals than last year, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Winnipeg has failed to reach at least 84 points in a full season just once in the 2.0 era, that came in 2015-16, when they had 78. They currently sit at 82, which is 34 fewer than a year ago. They are just the fifth Presidents’ Trophy winner to miss the playoffs the following season, and their decline is the steepest of them all.
The tidy structure and discipline that had become part of their DNA has disappeared for long stretches, particularly during an 11-game losing streak earlier in the year and a 30-game stretch in which they won just six times.
Arniel has seemingly tried every trick in the coach’s playbook, including borrowing a few from Bowness by calling his club out at times. And while there’s no evidence the Jets have quit on Arniel, the latest example being a near third-period comeback Tuesday night against Utah, the results simply haven’t been there.
There still appears to be a solid culture within the Jets, even if the overall standard of play has slipped significantly. There are no signs that players, especially Winnipeg’s most important ones, are content with how things have unfolded. That’s a good thing. They should be angry.
General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff deserves plenty of blame for what was clearly flawed roster construction around his core. The group is filled with too many slow, aging skaters who simply couldn’t keep up in a league that is younger and faster than ever.
Secondary scoring and the lack of a true second-line centre remain major issues heading into a longer-than-expected off-season. So does the organization’s recent track record in drafting and development.
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Assuming he’s back for a 16th season, Cheveldayoff — the only GM of the 2.0 era — should be under immense pressure from ownership to fix this quickly. He’ll have some tough questions to answer when he meets the media in the coming days for his year-end availability.
Attendance and revenues are real concerns in the NHL’s smallest market, especially with the salary cap rising and the Canadian dollar still sagging. True North needs this season to be the exception, not the norm.
It remains to be seen whether Arniel will get another chance to lead this group back to relevance. He has one more year left on his contract, and his team’s improved play since the Olympic break could work in his favour.
Arniel might also want to give his former mentor a call. They’d have plenty to talk about.
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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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