As his team languishes in the cellar of the NHL, Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff offered a mutual feeling of disappointment with fans â but no commitment to make immediate changes to try to salvage something from a miserable season.
“To this point, obviously, it’s been very disappointing. We need to find a way to be better,” Cheveldayoff said Monday during a mid-season media availability.
He then offered a hat trick of cliches:
The sputtering Jets are on a nine-game losing streak and dead last in the 32-team National Hockey League with a 15-21-4 (wins-losses-overtime losses) record for 34 points.
This time last year the Jets were 27-12-2 with 56 points and second in the league. They would go on to win the Presidents’ Trophy after finishing first in the regular season with a 56-22-4 record and 116 points.
After a promising 8-3 run to the start of the current season, the Jets have been in a tailspin, going 7-18-4, including blowing a three-goal lead against the Toronto Maple Leafs last week.
In Ottawa, at the most recent loss on Saturday, TV cameras spotted a Jets fan with a paper bag over their head.
“Fans in our market are very, very passionate and that is something we care deeply about,” Cheveldayoff said on Monday.
“Sports are very unpredictable and that’s the nature of the game here right now. I feel their [fans’] disappointment as much as they do.”
Only one team in NHL history â the 1942-43 New York Rangers â went from being league champions one season to placing last the next year. However, there were only six teams then, which make the Jets’ collapse even more staggering.
Cheveldayoff said many of those losses have been one-goal games, and the team could easily be on the winning side if it sticks to its structure. There’s been a tendency to veer off the blueprint at times, he said.
“Things can happen quickly the other way as well, if you get on the right track. I donât think that group [Jets players] ⦠feels that theyâre down and out of it.”
He also defended head coach Scott Arniel and his staff, saying they are “working extremely hard” and are also frustrated.
That same discouragement is felt by Mark Chipman, chair of True North Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Jets, Cheveldayoff said, calling Chipman a “bigger fan” than most.
The team’s management has faced criticism for not creating room for some of the veterans or highly touted rookies plying their trade on the Jets’ AHL farm team Manitoba Moose. Other than some minor juggling during injuries, the roster has remained the same.
To shift players down to the Moose would require putting them on waivers and risk other NHL teams scooping them up.
Cheveldayoff was asked whether that’s a risk worth taking to send a message.
“You’re always looking, you’re always trying to evaluate what options are out there, whether it’s internally, whether it’s externally,” he said.
“Those are conversations that are ongoing all the time. We’re not ruling out any of those options as we move forward here.”
The Jets aren’t the only ones doing so. At this point in the season, most teams are holding meetings and contemplating plans â some more urgently than others, Cheveldayoff said.
“There’s lot of teams that are fighting for their lives right now. Winning in this league is tough.â
Many recent trades around the NHL have involved teams giving up “currency” the Jets no longer have, he added, referring to draft picks or positions in upcoming drafts.
The Jets traded a lot of those positions away in previous years to get veteran players they thought could help carry them to the promised land and a Stanley Cup.
âSome of them help push you in the right direction. Some of them maybe donât pan out but you have to learn from those and you move on,â Cheveldayoff said about the many decisions that go into managing and NHL team.
There’s also been bad luck. In April, Chaz Lucius, a first-round draft choice of the Jets in 2021, announced his retirement from hockey after being diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
“Those are the players that you’re needing to make contributions, you know, right now. So we’ve traded a lot of draft picks ⦠and I think we’re paying a little bit of a price for that right now,” Cheveldayoff said.
Cheveldayoff said he and Arniel are in regular communication about what needs to be done but “there hasn’t necessarily been specific players [mentioned] to say, ‘I want this guy, I want that guy’ but we do have that kind of dialogue.”
“When the opportunity presents itself, we’ll take a look at it.”
