Jets' depth key to withstanding Scheifele's injury

WINNIPEG - It's only been two days of practice, but Blake Wheeler has enjoyed the familiar feeling of having Mark Scheifele back on his line.
"Scheif isn't the kind of guy that's going to dip his toe into the water. He better not if we're playing together," said Wheeler with a grin. "We put a ton of pressure on ourselves to play a certain way and have a certain impact on every single game."
The Jets went 11-2-3 without Scheifele, and have been able to maintain their hold on the Central Division's top spot, heading into action Thursday night.
During that time, Wheeler slid from the wing into the centre spot, scoring five times and adding 11 assists to average a point-per-game.

"He's an unbelievable athlete and an unbelievable person. Those guys find a way to get it done, and he exceeded everyone's expectations," said Scheifele. "I'm sure when I went down he was working on face-offs and trying to figure it out. That's just the guy he is. He works hard at everything he does. He's a competitor at everything he does.
"He just wants to be the best he can be, and be the best for the team. He definitely has shown that over the last six weeks."
Now on the eve of game day, and Scheifele's return to the line-up after missing 16 games, Wheeler reflected on his emotions when the 24-year-old Scheifele sustained his injury on Dec. 27.
"Terrified isn't the right word, but I was concerned about how it would work," said Wheeler. "(I have) a lot of confidence in (Adam Lowry), and (Bryan Little) and Matty Hendricks in the middle. But for me, you don't want to come in on a first place team and have that go south. I don't think it had anything to do with me. Every single guy stepped up."

In his mind, the strong play of the Mathieu Perreault, Bryan Little, and Nikolaj Ehlers trio was one of the big reasons he could excel in his adjustment to centre.
The numbers back up the Jets captain's thoughts. All three forwards ranked in the NHL's top 20 in shot attempt percentage during the six-week span Scheifele was out: Perreault at 59.92 per cent (fourth), Ehlers at 58.67 per cent (10th), and Little at 57.26 per cent (20th).
He also credited the "outstanding" play of Lowry's line and Hendricks' trio, which allowed Wheeler's unit to get some favourable match-ups, especially on home ice.
"I'm not able to do that and gain confidence and be comfortable doing that if one of those lines plays bad," said Wheeler. "If one of those lines plays bad and all of a sudden we're forced to do something maybe we're not capable of doing, who knows what it looks like?
"I give all the credit to those guys for helping me. Talking to me on the bench all the time, taking some of those heavy match-ups so when we started getting on a role, and getting some confidence, we were able to take a little bit more ice time and work our way into that role. It wasn't one guy."

Wheeler's play in the middle of the ice gave head coach Paul Maurice some pause before putting the 31-year-old back on the wing.
But now Maurice has options depending on the situation.
"Blake going into the middle now is a place we can go if we need to," said Maurice.
"Those two guys have such good chemistry. Mark was definitely going into centre ice when he came back. I wouldn't change his position. It's there, but I don't think it's a place we need to go to right away.
"But if we have a guy that goes down in the middle, now at least we have some options. For a while we didn't. But Copp can go in and out, and there's always Perreault that can go to the middle. That's the last option for us, but we've got centre ice men now."

During the 16 games Scheifele was injured, Wheeler took 228 draws, winning 113 of them, for a 49.6 face-off win percentage - just a shade under three percentage points behind Scheifele's 52.3 per cent mark this season.
"If he starts struggling, I might jump in there for a couple just to help him out a bit," Wheeler said, adding the experience at centre will help him back in his usual right wing spot. "I think a couple times in practice today - Scheif and I - I took the middle for him and he took the wall, and we were able to keep our speed coming into the zone. Little things like that definitely help."
While Scheifele admits there will be some nerves for his return to the line-up, he knows he's only one of a number of Jets on the injured list. With Adam Lowry, Jacob Trouba, Matt Hendricks, Brandon Tanev, Shawn Matthias, Steve Mason, and now goaltender Michael Hutchinson (concussion) among the walking wounded, Scheifele knows the work is far from over.
"We have a lot of great players. A lot of guys were playing good, and it takes a full team. That's what good teams do," said Scheifele. "There are injuries that happen all over the league. Our team did a great job of facing every injury. Whether it was me, Trouba, Lows, whoever it is, the team has been able to step up and gotten wins. That makes everybody happy."