‘You’ve got to score goals in this league’

Bruce Boudreau has seen a lot of things over his professional hockey career. The stunning collapse of the Winnipeg Jets — from first to worst in the NHL standings in the blink of an eye — has the longtime player turned coach turned puck pundit completely perplexed.

“All options should be on the table,” he told the Free Press. “Keep trying everything until you find something that works.”

For now, status quo continues to be the play. The reigning Presidents’ Trophy winners, who are currently dead last in the league with 34 points (15-18-4), boarded their charter Tuesday with the same 23 players in tow. Nobody was placed on waivers. Nobody was called up from the Manitoba Moose. Nobody was traded.

This, despite dropping six consecutive games (0-3-3) and 19 of their last 25 overall (6-15-4) as they begin a three-game road trip on Wednesday night in Detroit. They’ll also play Thursday in Toronto and then wrap up Saturday in Ottawa.

“I’m surprised a little bit,” admitted Boudreau. “Kevin (Cheveldayoff) is one of the most patient GMs ever, right? He doesn’t make any rash moves. But they’re at the stage where they’ve got to start winning. I think something needs to jump-start this team.”

Jets coach Scott Arniel has seemingly tried every trick in the coaching playbook — individual meetings with players, extended video sessions, ripping them publicly, pointing the finger of blame at himself publicly and killing them with kindness in the form of unexpected days off.

If Cheveldayoff isn’t going to give him any other options to consider, Boudreau suggested Arniel may need to send more pointed messages with the existing roster.

“Whether that means sitting out a guy that has been a regular forever, just to say ‘We’re not going to take it anymore, we’ve got to get going, I’ve given you guys all the rope you want and we’re getting the same results,’” said Boudreau.

“You know, I think something has to be done, a move where guys are like ‘I better get my ass in gear, I’m next.’”

Boudreau, who played for 17 years and then went on to coach for more than 30 — most recently with the Vancouver Canucks in 2022-23 — is one of the most respected names in the game who still works as a broadcast analyst around the league. He’s been watching the Jets closely this year and has identified several problems.

“If they had any other line scoring goals, they wouldn’t be in this mess they’re in,” he said.

Indeed, the Jets are essentially a one-trick offensive pony, with Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabe Vilardi doing the majority of the heavy lifting. The trio has combined or 52 goals in 37 games, with the 22 other skaters who have appeared in the lineup combining for 54 goals.

Arniel has been reluctant to split them up, so far only moving Vilardi to another line for short spurts but always keeping Scheifele and Connor intact. Boudreau said it may be time to re-consider.

“It’s easy to check one line,” he said. “Last year, they had two and three lines going. This year, they’re not. When you’ve only got one line going, and the other team is focusing on them and checking them, they know if they don’t score they’re not going to win. It’s really problematic.

The Jets’ recent run tells the story: strong defensive structure, solid goaltending and six consecutive one-goal defeats (excluding empty-netters).

“They’ve got that goalie, they’ve got that defence,” Boudreau said. “They should be able to hold their own defensively. But you’ve got to score goals in this league.”

Winnipeg is averaging 2.86 per game this season, which ranks 22nd. Since Nov. 4, however, when a 9-3-0 start began to swirl down the drain, they are 30th in the league at 2.44.

Unfortunately for the Jets, their issues don’t just end there.

“They don’t look fast to me,” said Boudreau. “(Nikolaj) Ehlers wasn’t an elite goal scorer, but he added so much speed to the lineup. It made the team look faster.”

Now, with Ehlers gone to Carolina, free agent signings such as Jonathan Toews, Gustav Nyquist and Tanner Pearson have failed to deliver. Core players such as Cole Perfetti (slowed by a high-ankle sprain), captain Adam Lowry (slowed by off-season hip surgery) and veteran, aging wingers such as Nino Niederreiter and Vlad Namestnikov have all struggled, too.

“Scoring down the line has dried up,” said Boudreau.

“Jonathan Toews, as much as we all love him, has not become the player after the layoff that we thought he hopefully could be. Great on faceoffs, but production-wide, it’s just not been there. They’ve got to find a way to score.”

One thing Boudreau does not see is a team that has quit on Arniel.

“No, no. They’re trying every night. Winnipeg tries their ass off,” he said. “But, you know, the coach is the easiest one to question. I won eight division titles and I still got fired three times.”

He’s also experienced the aftermath of Presidents’ Trophy seasons — including his own in Washington in 2009-10 which ended in a first round playoff exit — and knows how hard it is to follow-up on that kind of success.

“They call them career years for a reason,” he said. “You don’t have them every year. The goals that went in off the post last year? Now they’re going wide.”

As difficult as it may be right now, Boudreau said the key is trying to keep things as positive as possible.

“If the coach is acting like Eeyore from Winnie-the-Pooh, you’re probably not going to get a lot out of these guys,” he said.

“And the veteran leadership has to come through, too. There’s enough veterans on this team that they should be able to do that. But just find a way to turn it around. Score that extra goal. Bear down. Shoot the puck where you might normally be trying to make the perfect play. I’m starting to sound like a coach, again.”

As for the trade market, Boudreau surveys the current NHL landscape and sees 32 teams — the Jets included — that still feel they have a shot at the playoffs. Parity reigns supreme, save for the three-headed monster of Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota threatening to lap the field.

Which brings a sliver of hope for a group that is currently seven points below the playoff line with 45 regular-season games remaining.

“A wild-card is the only thing (the Jets) could possibly get at this point. One thing about Winnipeg, though. If they get in, there will be no pressure on them,” he said.

“They’ve had pressure the last three, four years because they were the higher seed. Now, there would be no pressure. I think that could work to their advantage. But somehow, they’ve got to flip the switch and some of these one-goal losses have to turn into wins.

“A rut and a groove — they’re exactly the same thing with two totally opposite meanings. Right now they’re in a rut, but they could turn it into a groove by winning those one goal games, then they would be hard pressed to lose, because then they would have the confidence and the belief that they can do it all the time.”

winnipegfreepress.com/mikemcintyre