Scheifele mulls future in Winnipeg, seeks vision for Jets
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Winnipeg Jets centre Mark Scheifele meets with media after the team beat the Seattle Kraken in Winnipeg on Sunday, May 1. Photo by KEVIN KING /Winnipeg Sun/Postmedia Network Article content
Given a chance on Sunday to shoot down speculation that he may want out of Winnipeg, Mark Scheifele instead reached for a grenade strapped to his belt and lobbed it into the Matt Frost Media Centre at Canada Life Centre.
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The explosion was deafening.
While the 29-year-old expressed his love for the only city he’s known in the NHL, he made it crystal clear — brazenly, even — that he needs to know what the vision is for the franchise he’s contractually obligated to for the next two seasons.
“I just have to know, I just have to understand where this team is going,” Scheifele said. “I’m in the prime of my career. I still have so much to improve on too and I like where my game is at. I like the physical nature that my body is at. I’m only improving, I’m only getting better and I’m only going to be a better player next year than I was this year. I just have to know where this team is going and what the direction is and what the changes are going to be, if any.”
It’s not like Scheifele can just get up and go wherever he feels like — his current eight-year, $49-million contract expires in the summer of 2024 — but he can certainly try and force the hand of Winnipeg’s management if he doesn’t like what he hears.
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And while Scheifele’s foot wasn’t exactly out of the door during his year-end availability with the media, he sure seemed to be dipping his toes through the opening.
He did nothing to douse the flames. If anything, he tossed more fuel on the fire.
“I obviously think there’s a lot of big questions to be asked this off-season about where the team’s going and what’s all going to happen and that’ll happen tomorrow,” Scheifele said, referring to his year-end conversation with general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff set for Monday. “I’d love to be in Winnipeg, but I also have to see where this is all going and what direction this team is going in and I guess we’ll see this summer.
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“I have to think about my career and what’s going to be best for me. Those are going to be… talks with my agents and everyone in my family and stuff like that and figure out what I really want. So, it will be a tough talk tomorrow (with Cheveldayoff).”
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It’s no secret this Jets team needs to make some major changes this offseason to right the ship.
With the emergence of Pierre-Luc Dubois as a top centre on the team, it’s opened up the thought that Scheifele could be expendable if the Jets can lock down the 23-year-old Dubois on a long-term deal.
Scheifele’s offensive capabilities are certainly well known, but too many times this season — and in recent years — attention to detail on the defensive side of the puck has left many asking for more.
This year, undoubtedly, has been a difficult one for Scheifele.
An early COVID diagnosis, the pressure of trying to make the Olympics and the aftermath of his vicious hit on Jake Evans in last year’s playoffs all took their toll on the team’s first draft pick of the 2.0 era.
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“I probably didn’t feel really like myself probably until after Christmas, I would say, maybe even a little after,” he said. “COVID, some bumps and some bruises and stuff like that. I didn’t like my game early on in the year.”
After the all-star break, Scheifele said he began finding his game again, finishing second on the team in scoring with 29 goals and 70 points in 67 games.
But he never really seemed to gel under interim head coach Dave Lowry’s regime after former bench boss Paul Maurice walked out on the team in mid-December.
“It was tough. It was tough for a lot of guys,” Scheifele said of Maurice’s abrupt departure. “I think pretty much every guy, unless they came from a different team, only knew Paul. That was kind of all we knew and for that to happen kind of before Christmas was tough, and tough on a lot of guys. It’s something you can’t really prepare for it unless it actually happens. And then it happens and you kind of don’t know how to react. I think a lot of guys feel that way.”
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There has been no indication on who the Jets will go with next season behind the bench, which may or may not have a direct impact on what the future holds for No. 55.
Lowry’s 26-22-6 record wasn’t enough to get the team into the playoffs. There’s an argument to be heard that he was dealt a bad hand after being blindsided by Maurice’s exit, and the subsequent shockwaves it sent through the dressing room.
Lowry acknowledged the shortcoming in the standings but praised some of the individual improvements that were made under his watch.
“We had a bunch of guys that had career years,” he said. “From a team standpoint, we didn’t get to where we needed to go, but I thought a lot of guys showed signs.”
As for Scheifele, Lowry essentially left it for the player and the organization to work it out.
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“I think the biggest thing coming out of what Mark said is that he is going to have to have his meeting and he is going to have to go through the process and then, he’s going to have to make a decision. That’s not something that I am going to control.”
It makes Cheveldayoff’s year-end media availability, scheduled for noon on Monday, all the more intriguing.
Let the soul-searching begin
In the end, the Winnipeg Jets just couldn’t figure it out.
Those are the words of their captain, Blake Wheeler, who addressed the media for one final time this season after Sunday’s win against Seattle.
“I don’t think there is anyone that can be very proud of their performance this year,” he said.
Indeed, the Jets finished eight points adrift of the Nashville Predators in the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
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In the Central Division, they ranked six out of eight teams, with only the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks and the lowly Arizona Coyotes beneath them.
“The onus is on us as players,” Wheeler said. “At the end of the day it’s our responsibility to continue to trend in the direction we’ve been trending. We took a step back this year.”
The Jets never really seemed to click together on the ice. Sure, there were moments where the stars aligned, including two memorable games, back to back, against the Edmonton Oilers back in November.
But other nights were merely shades of that, losing games to the likes of the Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators, among other disappointments in a season chock-full of them.
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“We’ve got to be held accountable — whether it’s player on player — and we’ve got to have more respect for each other,” said Paul Stastny, who left the door open for a return to the Jets, but said he will take some time to decide what the best fit for himself and his family is.
“When you don’t have that, when you don’t care about the teammate next to you — potentially — and you just care about what you’re doing or certain individual things, that starts bleeding into the game.”
The past few weeks have been injection after injection of truth serum as key players came out and questioned everything from motivation to the team’s culture.
Stastny, Winnipeg’s elder statesmen at 37, pointed not just to the players, but the coaching staff, using a recent example of Vancouver Canucks interim head coach Bruce Boudreau calling out one of his players publicly.
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That player went on to have a good game the next time out.
Stastny also looked west again, to Calgary and the Flames, who went from not making the playoffs last year to one of the league’s best clubs this year under a “hard-nosed” Darryl Sutter regime.
“For here, it’s kind of a wake-up call to realize it’s not going to be easy every year,” Stastny said. “We’ve had some young guys that maybe they didn’t make the playoffs their first year but every year they’ve gotten better and better for, you can probably tell me, the last eight years. So it’s easy. But then, all of a sudden when things got tough, we’ll see how guys react and respond. And I think it’s always a good learning experience for everyone and hopefully, they take that pill, learn from it in the summer, and make adjustments and realize you don’t want to be in this position.
“It stinks.”
sbilleck@postmedia.com
Twitter: @scottbilleck
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