WINNIPEG — If push came to shove, Winnipeg’s Brandon Tanev would throw down with his own flesh and blood, Vancouver defenceman Chris.
"Our Mom wouldn’t be too happy about it," Brandon admits. "If something were to happen, me and him grabbed each other, looked at each other, the situation arose… You definitely could go with it.
"And after the game, we’d be chuckling about it. It would be a great little story."
Hockey is a funny place, when it comes to thrusting one’s fist into an old friend’s eye. Men who won championships together along the road to the NHL will fight each other with bare fists, then go out after the game and replay the bout over a jug of beer.
Sometimes, even two teammates will have a go, like at Jets practice Saturday.
And here’s another hockey thing: The coach approves.
"You’d like a few MORE of those during the year if you could," said head coach Paul Maurice afterwards.
This is hockey. We fight because we love.
On Saturday, a Winnipeg Jets team that is rolling right along, having collected point No. 100 for the first time in franchise history only the night before, watched team captain Blake Wheeler lose it on defenceman Ben Chiarot, resulting in a fight.
Wheeler was the first to drop his gloves and was the clear aggressor. Chiarot appeared to land the only decent blows, of which there were few.
Wheeler was pulled out of the fracas, and tossed his helmet on the bench from 20 feet away as he coasted towards the gate. He was not heard from again on Saturday. Chiarot, who reminds me of a young Kevin Bieksa, held court with reporters afterwards.
"A scuffle in practice? They happen all the time," said Chiarot. "I look at it as a good thing.
"You spend every day with a group of guys," he continued. "Brothers are going to fight. When boys are playing a sport, a fast sport, things are going to happen.
"I don’t even remember how it started. It’s just boys being boys."
Ben Chiarot speaks on the intensity in today’s practice, the team’s versatility this season, and more. pic.twitter.com/PEBgRF5uVq — Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) March 24, 2018
On one of my first NHL assignments as a young reporter, back in about 1988 or ’89, I was sent to cover a New York Islanders practice. As I walked up the tunnel to rink side, there was Mick Vukota, fully engaged in a rather one-sided fight with some poor teammate. Meanwhile, the other Islanders milled around the perimeter, making sure whatever lesson was being meted out did not go too far.
The coaches monitored the situation, but stayed out of it. Nobody had anything to say about the altercation after the fact, and it was then that the young reporter learned that every once in a while, hockey teammates like to punch each other in the head.
"Everyone is competitive on this team. I think that’s why we’re doing so well," Tanev explained. "Guys have a great bond, and everyone is pushing each other on the ice. You come back here in the dressing room and see them laughing, smiling and hugging it out. That’s the bond, the camaraderie we have in this dressing room."
Crazy, isn’t it?
Imagine if you went in to drop off your taxes and two guys at Block Brothers were duking it out behind the cubicles? Or you walk into a Tim Horton’s, and two ladies are pulling each other’s hair out beside a tray of Canadian maples?
"It’s just a whole different set of repercussions," explained Maurice. "It’s five minutes and a game (in hockey). It’s buy each other dinner (after a scrap at practice). It’s jail time in real life.
"The question is, how to do you explain it your kids? Well, there are different rules for different things. You don’t bring a keg to church. There are some things that, where you are changes the repercussions. In hockey, it’s a five-minute penalty. But at the grocery store it’s far more serious."
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Maurice, like those old Islanders coaches, won’t address his team about this prior to a visit by Nashville Sunday night.
"There will be no family meeting tomorrow," he said.
But if any of the Predators takes a cheap shot at Wheeler, Chiarot will step in without hesitation. Same for Wheeler, if Chiarot needs a hand.
It’s hockey. What’s a couple of knuckle sandwiches between friends?
WINNIPEG — You can haul out the fancy stats, primarily a Corsi 5-on-5 that read 77 per cent for Winnipeg and 23 per cent for Anaheim at the end of regulation.
Or you can lean on that trusty ol’ eye test, which clearly didn’t differ for old-school Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle.
“They had the puck more than we did,” opined Carlyle, never your spreadsheet type of hockey man. “We were very, very fortunate to get out of this game with one point. Simple as that. Our goaltender stole us a point here tonight.
“I can’t overstate,” he would later add, after a 3-2 Jets overtime win, “how lucky we feel that we did get the point.”
In a game as territorially lopsided as this reporter can recall, the Ducks hung around and hung around in Winnipeg, solely on the strength of a fabulous, 39-save performance by goalie John Gibson.
The shots were 17-4 for Winnipeg after 20 minutes. The Zamboni men flooded both ends of the rink anyhow, out of kindness. After 40 minutes, the Ducks had six even-strength shots on goal. They never had more than six in a single period, of any stripe.
“You spend so much time in your zone you get tired and can’t really be physical and stop their guy,” said veteran Ducks defender Francois Beauchemin. “You’re mostly circling, containing them, trying to keep them on the outside. (Gibson) just stole that point for us.”
Against a Ducks team that lost Ryan Getzlaf (flu) just before warmups, Winnipeg controlled the puck like a snake charmer, wheeling around the offensive zone for the entire evening, peppering Gibson with vulcanized rubber.
Frustrating?
“You play an entire game in the offensive zone, it’s hard to get frustrated,” said Winnipeg’s Blake Wheeler, whose two assists moved him into a tie for the league lead with 64, alongside the Flyers’ Claude Giroux. “Tip your cap to (Gibson), he played well. And they pack the house pretty good. We couldn’t get in there and get a couple of better looks.”
Patrik Laine, who became a surprise participant after taking that shot off the leg Tuesday, was kept off the scoreboard. But head coach Paul Maurice liked his game.
“Really, really good. I’m going to fire a couple shots off his ankle tomorrow in practice,” he joked. “It will be my shot, so it won’t really hurt him.”
Why not?
It’s time to have a few laughs here in Winnipeg, the town that winning hockey forgot about for long enough. This patient, patient rebuild has suddenly blossomed, with a pair of sub-23-year-old 28-goal men in Nikolaj Ehlers and Kyle Connor — who scored his second consecutive overtime winner Friday — as well as the teenaged Laine, who has 43 tucks this season.
This is one of Canada’s two entries in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and we’d go so far as to say this is the one with the biggest upside. They grabbed a decent, experienced Anaheim team Friday and rag-dolled them.
“Look at the chances we had tonight. We probably could have scored another eight,” said Ehlers, not bragging even a bit. “But that’s what we’re getting to right now. We’re getting to playoff-type hockey now. Those are the games you need to go out and win – when they’re not going in.”
And so we reach the next hurdle for the Jets — playoff success.
They met the 100-point threshold Friday in game No. 74. Only three NHL clubs are better than that.
“If someone said you’d have 100 points, would you take that?” Maurice was asked.
“Yeah, you’d take that. You’d be pleased with it,” he said, a rare chance to look back on some success in this blur of a stretch run. “There’s not really a place for us to reflect, we’re in the middle of the season.”
They’ve won games various ways, as any good team must do to get to triple figures in the points column. But Friday’s game was something else altogether, complete domination that required an extra 3:15 of three-on-three hockey before the second point was claimed.
It’s “whatever it takes” time for these Jets. And boy, do they look ready for the challenge.
“The last two weeks we’ve played playoff-type hockey,” Ehlers said. “It’s exciting, these tight, tough, hard-hitting games. You may not get a lot, but you’ve got to score on the chances you get. It’s exciting.”
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The 21-year-old from Shelby Township, Mich., fired his second overtime winner of the week to lift the Jets to a 3-2 victory over the visiting Ducks.
But Kyle Connor, another of the team’s talented shooters, stole the headline from him.
The Jets forward was, indeed, a player against the Anaheim Ducks despite all indications to the contrary just a day before.
Patrik Laine’s bruise was big news in Winnipeg for about 72 hours but quickly morphed into little more than a footnote Friday night.
Patrik Laine’s bruise was big news in Winnipeg for about 72 hours but quickly morphed into little more than a footnote Friday night.
The Jets forward was, indeed, a player against the Anaheim Ducks despite all indications to the contrary just a day before.
But Kyle Connor, another of the team’s talented shooters, stole the headline from him.
The 21-year-old from Shelby Township, Mich., fired his second overtime winner of the week to lift the Jets to a 3-2 victory over the visiting Ducks.
Connor stole puck from Adam Henrique near the Anaheim bench and burst out on a odd-man rush with Mark Scheifele. Connor flipped the puck to Scheifele and got it back, rifling his 28th goal through John Gibson’s pads at 3:16 of the three-on-three session.
"It feels good. Every time you score in this league it’s a good feeling," said Connor. "I’m just focusing on getting better each game and that’s our biggest focus on the team."
Asked to explain his hot hands of late: "I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. If I knew I’d be doing it every time. I’m trying to focus on the little things," said Connor.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods Anaheim Ducks centre Derek Grant tips the puck past Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck for a goal as defenceman Dustin Byfuglien and Ducks right wing Ondrej Kase look on during the first period.
"I think that translates for our whole line. We’re doing those things well defensively and we’ll get our chances and eventually we’ll bury them."
Nikolaj Ehlers scored his 28th in the first period, while Scheifele also scored, his 22nd, early in the second period and set up the other two Jets tallies.
"They’re talented players," Scheifele said, giving props to the speedy Ehlers and Connor. "When you give them a chance in the slot they’re going to bury it, so they’ve been improving each and every game. They’ve been awesome for us."
The Jets (45-19-10) set a franchise record with the win, earning their 100th point of the season. The Central Division’s second-place club is four-for-four on its current six-game home stand, while snapping Anaheim’s four-game winning streak in the process.
The Ducks (38-24-13) are still grasping the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Connor was the finisher just three nights ago, ripping a shot past Los Angeles goalie Jack Campbell in OT in a 2-1 triumph over the Kings.
Laine, meanwhile, who left Tuesday’s game early after taking a blast off a foot, had plenty of bullets in the chamber and fired at will against Gibson from some promising vantage points but couldn’t hit the mark. He was stopped five times, so the 19-year-old winger’s goal count stays at 43, still one back of his childhood idol, NHL goal-scoring leader Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals.
Blake Wheeler had two helpers, upping the Jets captain’s assist total to 64, tying him with Philadelphia Flyers centre Claude Giroux for the NHL assists lead.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods Winnipeg Jets left wing Kyle Connor celebrates scoring the game winning goal against the Anaheim Ducks during overtime, Friday.
The Jets swarmed the Ducks for much of the night but Gibson was brilliant, stopping 39 shots.
Wheeler credited the puckstopper with a tremendous effort.
"You play an entire game in the offensive zone, it’s hard to get frustrated. We jumped on them early and we were just able to sustain a lot in their zone and didn’t quite get the bounces we wanted or get one by their guy (Gibson)," said Wheeler. "Tip your cap to him, he played well. We had a lot of zone time, they kept us to the outside a little bit. We couldn’t get in there and get a couple of better looks."
Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle, a former Jets 1.0 blue-liner and Manitoba Moose bench boss, said his club was lucky to even get to the extra session.
"They had the puck more than we did. We were very, very fortunate to get out of this game with one point. Simple as that," said Carlyle. "Our goaltender stole us a point tonight. We didn’t have a lot of energy.
"(The Jets) were skating much quicker, much stronger, and they dominated the play territorially and the shots."
Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck wasn’t tested in overtime but made a game-saver off Ryan Kesler with less than 20 seconds left in regulation. He finished with 16 stops.
Ducks centre Derek Grant opened the scoring with a power-play goal in the first period. Ehlers, just 55 seconds later, and Scheifele, early in the second period, replied for Winnipeg.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods Anaheim Ducks goaltender John Gibson loses track of the puck as it bounces off the boards and Winnipeg Jets centre Paul Stastny attempts to smack it in during second period NHL action in Winnipeg on Friday.
Nick Ritchie tied the game 2-2 with 9:43 left in the third period.
Laine left during the second period of Tuesday’s game against Los Angeles after taking a hard shot off the back of his left foot from Kings defenceman Alec Martinez.
The club offered no update on his condition Wednesday, however, head coach Paul Maurice was pretty firm Thursday the Finnish teen would not play against either the Ducks or Nashville Predators on Sunday evening.
But he made a rather quick improvement, and was a surprise participant in the Jets’ morning skate, taking line rushes with centre Paul Stastny and winger Ehlers without any obvious signs of discomfort
Laine was ready, willing and able, and the team physician supplied the all-clear sign, and Laine went out and did just about everything but score. He also made a nice defensive play with the score knotted 2-2, sliding to break up a two-on-one rush.
NOTES:
Winnipeg defenceman Toby Enstrom suffered a lower-body injury in the second period and didn’t play in the third.
Ducks centre Ryan Getzlaf was a late scratch after coming down with flu-like symptoms.
The Jets continue the homestand Sunday when the division-leading Nashville Predators pay a visit to Bell MTS Place. Game time is 6 p.m.
jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @WFPJasonBell
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