JN AirMail – Janurary 15, 2017

Light week for the Jets Nation Air Mail this week which is a tad understandable as Jets fans feel a bit worn down after two brutal uninspired losses and an OT loss where the Jets maybe deserved a little bit better a fate.

As always, if you have a Jets or hockey related question in general burning away in your head, be sure to @ reply our Twitter account with the hashtag #JNAirMail and we’ll get to answering it next week

Jacob: Having good prospects doesn’t automatically formulate in to quick success. Furthermore, there’s more to the Jets than just Laine, Scheifele, Ehlers etc. Other factors are important, such as goaltending, which as we all know isn’t up to par right now. It was an inspired forecast and frankly as of now, one that will end up being inaccurate. Until the Jets goaltending is tweaked and until the Jets get deeper defensively, the Jets aren’t getting close to hoisting a cup.

Dustin: Inspired forecast! The talent pool is overflowing and, recorded be damned, this team is going places. I mean, at some point, a team with Patrik Laine, Mark Scheifele, and Nikolaj Ehlers is going to have to win some games, right? Right?? Throw in the likes of Kyle Connor, Nic Petan, Jacob Trouba, and Josh Morrissey and I refuse to believe that this team can continue to be this bad for too too much longer. Sigh.

You have to understand magazines do things like this to sell copies and in this age of getting page clicks and generating buzz on social media, The Hockey News makes a prediction that 99% of hockey fans wouldn’t make to get one of those “can you believe these guys said this?” buzz and I’m sure in 2019 once we find out the true results we’ll look back at that issue and either go “wow, these guys were stupid” or “wow, these guys knew their stuff” and either way it equals more attention, more page clicks and more revenue.

As for the actual prediction? Well it was a risky one even then and that was before the Jets lucked into Laine, but it was an educated guess. As Dustin said, at some point with that young talent you’d expect the Jets to at least contend.

Jacob: Probably the Biebs cause he lived here for a bit.

Dustin: No surprise that this question comes from Hangar Hockey (ha!) but I have to admit that I might be too old to understand how this is actually a question. It’s gotta be Gomez, no?

This is a trick question… Everyone knows Selena Gomez is far too busy

and Bieber is so far gone in his life that he probably doesn’t even remember his trip back to Winnipeg with Miss Gomez back in 2012.

Jacob: I think a lot needs to be evaluated right now. But one thing is for sure, I don’t think it’s fair to fire Paul Maurice after having to work with this goaltending debacle. Give him a shot with a solid duo and then we can re-evaluate his future. Now in terms of Chevy, questions should be asked. Yes, he put his money where his mouth was on the Scheifele pick and scooping up Ehlers and Laine as well creates a nice draft record. The Evander Kane trade was an absolute steal and something he should be applauded for. But he also employed Chris Thorburn, Mark Stuart and Ondrej Pavelec to deals they simply did not deserve. The depth on the back end is really diminishing and this years goaltending needs to be changed.

Questions need to be answered and change needs to be made, it’s no time to be passive. If they continue being passive, they wont trend upward. Everything top to bottom needs to be re-evaluated because this roster is simply too talented to go to waste.

Dustin: Last night, Elliott Friedman told us he feels Paul Maurice is getting an extension in the summer. Whether or not this should be the case, I’m willing to be that it’s true. But I think the rest of the staff might be in some real danger. Jaime Kompon and Todd Woodcroft are fairly new, so they’re probably safe, but I think we’re going to see some major changes this off-season in terms of the rest of the assistant coaching staff. If PoMo stays, I think Charlie Huddy and Wade Flaherty, and perhaps even Pascal Vincent as coach of the Moose, will be shown the door. As for the higher ups, I don’t think we see any changes at the GM level for quite some time.

Art: Do we need it? I think so. Will we get it? Not at all. We’re already heard from Elliott Friedman and Gary Lawless that not only is Paul’s job safe, but he’s due to get an extension this summer. If that’s the case than Kevin Cheveldayoff’s job is obviously safe because you don’t sign a coach to an extension if the GM has one foot out the door. As for the assistant coaches, again I would think that there should be changes, but unless there is another NHL team willing to promote Kompon, Huddy or Flaherty to better positions within their own club, the Jets are “stuck” with them and don’t seem to mind at all.

I’m convinced the Jets feel they are set, they just need time for this team to some how magically get better with the pieces they have.