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Negotiating from a pillar of strength is always the top priority in business.
In the hockey arena, it’s no different, as your best advantage comes from having a full and healthy roster.
But as the Winnipeg Jets enter the final portion of their regular season — that is, the post-Olympic break segment — they do so limping into Vancouver on Wednesday night slightly shorthanded.
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With an objective over the coming weeks to erase an 11-point deficit in the playoff standings and with only 26 games to play in a compressed 51 days, the task was already made problematic.
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But after Tuesday’s news that Josh Morrissey, Neal Pionk and Nino Niederreiter are listed as week-to-week at best, due to injuries, and Connor Hellebuyck won’t rejoin the team from his Olympic commitment until later this week in Anaheim, the adversity, like a simmering cream sauce, just got thicker.
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As the Jets begin a truly important three-game road trip through the Pacific Division against the Canucks — the National Hockey League’s last-place team — the resolve and belief coming out of their room this past week has been admirable.
From players to coaches, you honestly feel there’s confidence within the group to stage the greatest late-season run in the franchise’s 15-year history, and one the city has never experienced at any level of hockey.
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But as mentioned, doing so without two top defencemen (the two quarter-backs on your respective power play units, no less), along with a six-time, 20-goal scorer and your reigning Vezina and Hart Trophy-winning goaltender out, makes the climb out of the crater a little steeper and certainly more jagged.
It’s not exactly the leverage the Jets were hoping for coming out of the break in negotiating their way back into playoff contention. But perhaps the pillar of strength that appears to be slightly missing can still be used as a jumping-off point in getting down to the business of saving the best of the season, for last.
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