Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has made it abundantly clear: ownership and management are “all in” for a deep run into the playoffs.
Now it’s up to the players to do their part.
Let’s be clear: the Jets are hardly stumbling and fumbling into the home stretch with 10 wins in their last 14 games. They are still very much in contention for a first- or second-place finish in the NHL Central.
And Winnipeg came out of the trading deadline with a very coveted piece in Tyler Toffoli, after scooping up Sean Monahan during the all-star break.
But — and isn’t there always a disclaimer — there are some nagging concerns that need to be dealt with over the next five-plus weeks.
I would suggest consistency would be at the very top of coach Rick Bowness’s list. And never was that more evident than on the weekend when the Jets completely stifled Seattle, and less than 24 hours later were totally vanquished in Vancouver.
It was almost a repeat of what happened three weeks earlier when Winnipeg won that epic first meeting of the season versus the Canucks, then followed up with the clunker in Calgary that resulted in Bowness describing his team’s performance as its “softest” of the season.
Fast forward to Saturday night when the veteran bench boss chose “worst game in the two years I’ve been coaching here” as the final analysis of the blowout loss in Vancouver, on the heels of KOing the Kraken.
And in between, let’s not forget the disappointment in Dallas.
In the two matchups that mattered most in the recent 10-game stretch, Winnipeg came up well short of expectations.
Of the 19 games remaining on the schedule, there are nine I believe fall into that category of “measuring stick contests.”
And we will not have to wait long for the first one, because Wednesday night, red-hot Nashville comes to town.