WINNIPEG – After over two years of being away from the NHL, it sounds like Jonathan Toews will be carrying a heavy load of responsibilities for the Winnipeg Jets.
To start, he will be centering the second line with Cole Perfetti and Gustav Nyquist. Wednesday afternoon, assistant coach Davis Payne touched on Toews being on the second power play unit and capitalizing on the 37-year-old’s gift in the faceoff circle.
This afternoon, assistant coach Dean Chynoweth discussed the opportunity to add the three-time Stanley Cup winner to his options on the penalty kill especially with Adam Lowry missing at least until early November.
“I mean, with Low being out, gives Toews the opportunity, obviously, he's extremely strong face-off circle, and has killed penalties in the past,” said Chynoweth.
“You got (Gustav) Nyquist, you got (Tanner) Pearson also, who has killed as well. And then you bring in a guy like (Cole) Koepke, who also has killed in Boston. So, there's experience there. We got numbers like I said that we can try some different things and see who can fill in while he's out, and see what step they take with it.”
Winnipeg finished 13th in the NHL in penalty killing (79.4%) and clearly would like to get better especially with all the veteran faces they have added in the offseason. Discussions were had with coaches and the players about what they liked and didn’t like about the system they ran last season.
“When we are aggressive and everybody's on the same page, it looks fairly effective when one guy's off or two guys are off, it doesn't,” said Chynoweth.
“So, it's getting the pairs trying to be a little consistent with the pairs that we're sending out, whether it's forward pairs or the D pairs. And guys have to take on certain roles to be able to make the team and also increase their ice time.”
One of Chynoweth’s key penalty killers is Dylan Samberg who took a huge leap last season and just signed a three-year, 17.25-million-dollar contract in the summer.
“He is a big-bodied guy that moves well, and he applies himself to his trade. Every day he is looking to get better,” said Chynoweth.
“From the start of last year to the end of last year there was questions on was he going to be in the top four spot and he sealed that pretty quickly for us with how he played coming off the broken foot. So, a lot of good qualities there.”
