- How “cool” is it for Cole Perfetti to be playing on a line with Jonathan Toews? In a recent interview on the 680 CJOB pregame show, Perfetti admitted as an eight-year-old growing up in Whitby, Ont., one of the most exciting moments that year was getting the video game EA Sports NHL 11, which featured Toews on the front cover. And now 15 or so years later the two are playing on a line together, prompting Perfetti to speak nostalgically: “Sometimes it doesn’t even feel real to talk with him on the bench. I look back and eight-year-old me would be freaking out right now.”
- Based on where the Jets currently sit in the standings and their realistic play for a wild card spot in the Western Conference, one wonders how important their final two games of the regular season will be to determine a berth in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Entering the final week of January, both the Utah Mammoth and San Jose Sharks occupy the two wild card positions in the conference. Winnipeg’s final two games (Game 81 & 82) will be played against…..wait for it……Utah (road) and San Jose (home), respectively.
- Mason Appleton played 351 games for the Winnipeg Jets over two different stints. He is undoubtedly the most recognizable “ginger” to suit up for the team, a distinction he wears with pride based on his red hair. When the Jets traveled recently to Detroit to play Appleton’s new team, the Red Wings, one member of the local media mused to the Green Bay product that he looked good in red, a reference to the Red Wings home colours. In true Appleton character, he deadpanned back by saying with a chuckle, “I didn’t know red would be my colour!”
- On the same trip, it was fascinating to listen to Red Wings head coach Todd McClellan talk about special teams. McClellan, a veteran of over 1,200 NHL games behind the bench, spoke specifically about improving a team’s penalty killing. He indicated most – if any - alterations to that specialty are done in training camp because replicating that environment in practice or morning skates in-season is a difficult task and comes with an injury risk. “It’s one of the hardest aspects of the game to practice because it takes a lot of sacrifice to really make a penalty kill happen. You’re thinking about shot blocking especially. There are things you just can’t do in practice.”
- Still behind the bench, it’s amazing the lengths coaches will go to find something to inspire their team. During the Jets’ recent scuffles head coach Scott Arniel used an inspirational and profound quote from British author C.S. Lewis. He wrote the axiom on the dry-erase board in the dressing room before one road game and while the team didn’t win that night, a few of the players indicated it helped them to refocus. It read: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
- For the second straight year Dallas Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan will be spending a chunk of the NHL’s February break in Manitoba. As a result of his son, Landen, playing for the University of Regina Cougars, Gulutzan will venture to Winnipeg during the Olympic respite to watch the 21-year-old play a two-game USports series with the University of Manitoba Bisons (Feb. 6 & 7). Last year during the league shutdown for the 4 Nations Face Off, Gulutzan spent time in Swan River watching Landen play for the MJHL’s Stampeders while he was an assistant coach with the Edmonton Oilers.
- Good on the Manitoba Moose for allowing captain Mason Shaw to be part of Team Canada at the recent Spengler Cup. Although the Canadians were eliminated in the quarter finals, the experience is undoubtedly one of that will be a top tier moment in his career. For many hockey fans, attending that tournament over the Holidays is also a bucket list destination.
- If you’ve ever wondered how small the hockey world is then this anecdote might illustrate it. When the Jets last visited Seattle, centre Chandler Stephenson mused that he and two of his Kraken teammates are all alumni of the WHL’s Regina Pats. Not only that, but they all had the same billet family during different periods of their careers while playing for the storied major junior franchise. Ryker Evans and Cale Fleury are the other two Kraken players to share the same distinction with Stephenson.
- By now you probably know the great story of the Pionk Brothers growing up in Hermantown, Minnesota. The five boys played hockey, baseball, golf and anything else that involved a stick, club or ball. Along the way three of them, including Jets’ d-man Neal, were good enough to combine school and hockey at college. One of the younger brothers, Joe, is also involved in hockey but not as a player. He recently accepted a job with Clarkson University as the men’s hockey team’s head equipment manager. Previously, he was the equipment manager of the AHL’s Colorado Eagles for three years and the USHL’s Omaha Lancers for three more.
- Short Shifts: After waiting 12 years for NHL players to return to the Olympics, let’s hope the hockey tournament is so entertaining we quickly forget about all of the construction issues surrounding the venue leading up to the games…. With both the NBA and NFL competing for viewership on Christmas Day, it’s certainly important to note the NHL has traditionally used the Holidays to be an important break in their schedule. Not since 1971 has the league played on Christmas Day/Night, thanks to an agreement between the NHL and NHLPA. For the record, the NHL reports that Gordie Howe holds the record for most games played on Christmas with 21…It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but Kyle Connor leads the Jets in scoring the game’s first goal overall in the last two seasons. His current total sits at nine, including six last season….The Utah Mammoth remain the NHL’s only team without a game decided by a shootout….Did you know that Dean Chynoweth, the Jets assistant coach, once recruited Adam Lowry to play for the Swift Current Broncos? Chynoweth at the time was the head coach/GM of the Broncos….Let’s hope that after this summer’s 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo the league decides that the decentralized format is a missed opportunity to create a destination event for fans instead of just another made-for-TV affair. If so, it would be great to see it come to Winnipeg…And finally, can someone please explain why a team is charged with a goal-against when they lose in a shootout? Or for that matter gets credit for a goal-for? If shootout goals don’t count for the players scoring them, then why is the winning goal charged as a goal-for or against to the team’s involved?...Enjoy the Olympics everybody!
-30-
