Last night I dreamed I made it to the promised land
I was standin’ at the gate and I had the key in my hand
Saint Peter said “Come on in boy, you’re finally home”
I said “No thanks, Pete, I’ll just be moving along”
-Steve Earle
Back when Steve Earle was an emerging country star and Rick Bowness was still just 32 years old, the singer-songwriter released a song called I Ain’t Ever Satisfied.
He may as well have been writing about the current Winnipeg Jets head coach.
The now 67-year-old Bowness seems like the kind of guy who thinks the Mona Lisa doesn’t have the proper smile.
Someone who’d walk into the Sistine Chapel and notice something wrong with the floor coverings.
That summer sunset over Lake Winnipeg? A little too orange for his liking.
Bowness’s most recent hockey critique came after his Jets had dismantled the Ottawa Senators, 5-1, on Tuesday.
It may not have been a work of art, but 5-1 is still 5-1, right?
Not through the coach’s lens, which instead of rose-colouring has been dipped in a can of ugly.
“The whole game for me, it’s ridiculous how many unnecessary shots we give up just because of our puck management,” Bowness told the assembled media types. “Listen, we love the two points, we needed the win, we got it. We got away with things that we will not get away with on Thursday or Friday.”
Bowness was referring to the Jets’ next two games, Thursday in Boston, Friday in Washington.
In the former, they’ll run head-first into the 25-4-2 Bruins, the NHL’s top team, particularly at home, where they’re 17-0-2.
The more mortal Capitals have won just 17 of their 34 games but have a solid 10-5-1 mark on home ice.
No doubt the taste of a 5-2 defeat at the hands of the Caps in Winnipeg just over a week ago is still fresh on the coach’s tongue.
When he bites into something similar, his face quickly turns sour.
What had “Bones” rattling post-game on Tuesday was a first-period that saw the Jets out-shot 15-5 at one point.
By the end of the 20 minutes they’d found their legs, though, and had a 3-1 lead.
It was 5-1 at the end of the second, capping a “much better” period for his team, Bowness acknowledged.
Then he went on about all the glorious chances the Senators missed and the unnecessary time the Jets spent in their own zone.
“I said this in training camp: we have a lot of work to do,” he continued. “Tonight shows me we still do. We needed the win, we got it. But let’s be honest with how we played. That 5-1 is a whole lot different than the 5-1 in Vancouver where we played an outstanding 60 minutes.”
Good to know he can still recognize a good thing when he sees it.
More often than not, though, he’ll point out the flaws, if they’re egregious.
None of this is to say Bowness drags a black cloud around with him wherever he goes. Far from it.
The man’s personable and doesn’t usually wear a scowl.
And he’s not the first coach to never seem satisfied.
Most of them are cranky as cats in water. Seems it’s part of the job description. Like a handyman in an old house, there’s always something that needs fixing.
After last season, the Jets were one of the NHL’s more daunting fixer-uppers.
As most Winnipeg homeowners know, when your foundation is the problem, you’ll be pouring time, money and energy into the thing for a while. It affects everything.
Bowness isn’t interested in simply filling the cracks and slapping a coat of paint on it, restoring some of the curb appeal.
Since taking the job last summer, he’s been excavating to the footing and trying to underpin it. Prevent future shifting when rough conditions hit. Only then will he back-fill.
You’d think he’s well on the way, with the 21-10-1 Jets sporting the best winning percentage in the Western Conference.
It’s almost like the result isn’t what matters at this point, though. It’s how his team plays.
Going back to the house analogy, once you have a solid footing, you can start to appreciate the cosmetics.
The time will come when the result is all that matters.
Bowness knows as well as anyone that injuries and the schedule play a role, too, in what the Jets look like on any given night.
Neither of those are working in their favour right now.
“I don’t know if it was necessarily a Picasso out there, but we found a way to win,” is how defenceman Josh Morrissey put it, Tuesday. “It’s not always going to be pretty. It’s not always going to be your perfect game.”
Their coach is striving for it, though, pushing them towards it.
After all, the promised land is in that general direction.
pfriesen@postmedia.com
Twitter: @friesensunmedia
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