There were very few things former Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice detested more during his tenure than a reporter introducing a negative into the equation after a victory.
When his club won a game by pulling one out of the fire, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, it was a heralded moment.
Those underlying problems? Another story for another day.
The only problem, particularly near the end of Maurice’s tenure, was that another day rarely came. The Jets continued to try and execute a game plan that used brute offensive force. And if all else failed, which it often did, unrealistic hope would be placed at the feet of Connor Hellebuyck.
On Tuesday, Maurice returns to Winnipeg, now at the helm of the Florida Panthers, a team that won the Presidents’ Trophy last season but sits two points back of a playoff spot as of Monday.
And as it turns out, both teams appear to be in vastly different places.
But first, let’s go back a bit.
It’s March 9, 2021, and the Jets are in Toronto facing the first of three straight against the Maple Leafs. Winnipeg wins the game 4-3, despite being heavily outshot, outchanced and outplayed.
Inevitably, questions in the post-game zoom availability with Maurice start to prod at the roots.
What needs to be better?
“Oh, never ever introduce a negative,” Maurice said.
Fast forward a couple of years to Sunday afternoon.
The Jets have won again, this time 5-2 against the Anaheim Ducks where a tough opening period was followed by two where the Jets dominated.
Maurice is no longer in the picture, having walked out on the team just under a year ago. Now, Rick Bowness is at the helm. And the first couple of questions posed to him weren’t about the comeback win.
With slow starts and good recoveries… Is that good or bad?
“Good or bad, I don’t look at it that way,” Bowness said, still perturbed about how his team won. “It’s just not right to start a game like that.”
The Jets were outshot 18-7 in the opening frame. They’d go on to reverse that quite nicely, closing out the final two periods with a 33-12 advantage and their 15th win.
But Bowness was quick to address what Maurice would have often perceived as a “negative.”
“Listen, I’m the head coach so I’m responsible for the way we start and getting our team prepared. So that starts with me,” Bowness continued. “The second thing is I’m not a babysitter. These guys are men. They’re professionals and they’re paid to show up here and go to work. My job here is to make that happen. The third thing on that would be: you cannot play this game without passion. Without emotion. You cannot play this game on your heels. And I hate when we’re on our heels. It’s not right.”
Bowness said Saturday that he’s not the type to park a poor performance.
As the great Ice Cube once said, ‘You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.’
“If you don’t address it, they can slide into a much bigger, much longer picture,” Bowness said. “And then you say, you should have addressed it. I always try to stay one step ahead of it and address it.”
We can assume that Maurice tried to deal with Winnipeg’s shortcomings behind the scenes. The difference between him and Bowness, however, is that one tackles it head-on in the media, and as such, ensures to the fans that the pitfalls they are seeing are being tended to.
There are no attempts at misdirection, taking the heat off of his players for what they did on the ice by waxing poetic up at the podium by Bowness.
There hasn’t been any coddling or hand-holding, no attempts at being a human meat shield for the guys in the dressing room.
If someone or the collective has done wrong, Bowness has already handled it with that individual or the team before answering the first question. And from there, he tells it like it is.
“So we had a bad game on Friday (4-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets) and everyone is saying all the right things yesterday but words mean nothing to me, they mean nothing,” Bowness said, still lamenting that first period. “All I want to see is action. I want to see passion and emotion in the way we play. Right or wrong, play with passion, play with emotion and we’ll figure the rest out. We’re still trying to figure this team out a little bit. We are. We’ll figure it out.”
In recent years, wins like Sunday’s were too often sugar-coated. Symptoms may have been addressed, but the relief was only temporary and the illness never truly disappeared.
Fans could see it was just lipstick being applied to a pig. It was groan-inducing.
Bowness, the new voice Maurice felt the team needed when he resigned last season, doesn’t keep a tube of Chanel in his pocket.
The brutal honesty is welcomed, and not just because it’s a good quote or a potential headline.
In a hockey-mad market flush with knowledgeable and intelligent fans, it doesn’t try and pull the wool over their eyes. It respects them instead.
The Jets may win games because they “stayed in the fight,” but that’s no longer a signal for popping champagne bottles.
Sunday wasn’t a good win by the Jets, but in years past, the bubbly would have been on order. It was two points in the bag. A valuable addition to their haul at the end of the season.
Bowness was quick to cut any of that thinking off at the knees.
If the Jets truly want to be good, there’s no room for 5-2 wins played the wrong way, let alone 5-2 wins lauded for being played as such.
sbilleck@postmedia.com
Twitter: @scottbilleck
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