Remember the old days when the Winnipeg Jets General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff would barely ever make a deal and #StandPatChevy would trend on Twitter, as we all wondered if his cabin by the lake had cell phone reception, and all of us would look at the club and poke at it with a virtual stick wondering if they were aware they could do deals on a day like today?

That seems like eons ago now doesn’t it? Chevy and the Jets were by far the most active team on Trade Deadline Day 2019, but while there was a lot of quantity, they didn’t exactly deal in a whole lot of quality.

There was a LOT that happened today and it can be a bit overwhelming to look at it all at once, so let’s go over the moves made today shall we?

A handful of people have called this an “overhaul” of players for the Jets, but it really isn’t. The addition of Hayes to the top six forward group does bump down a player – looking a lot like Bryan Little – to the lower half of the group, but outside of that, there really isn’t much change to the Jets roster as we’ve seen it pretty much this entire season.

Kevin Cheveldayoff in his post-deadline press conference didn’t give us any details on the status of Josh Morrissey other than to speculate that he’s probably going to miss the game against the Minnesota Wild, but putting on my arm-chair doctors hat for a moment and typing in Josh’s symptoms into WebMD would indicate he has cancer he probably has a separated shoulder and could be out four to six weeks. That would mean pretty much the rest of the regular season and hopefully not much more.

Chevy may have stated that the moves to add some additional bodies for defense were not directly influenced by the Morrissey injury, but it had to have been helped along – after all, he did see the same play that we all unanimously agreed was *not good* – and since the market for left handed defensemen wasn’t exactly ripe for the picking, the Jets basically got a couple of low level insurance policies to get them through the grind of the last month of regular season hockey and then hopefully to be on standby come playoff time.

Nathan Beaulieu was an ok defenseman in Montreal for the first three seasons of his career there, but he really hasn’t won anyone over in the two years he’s been with the Sabres. He’s a physical presence that can skate and does have some decent puck handling skill, but his decision making isn’t always the best, and even worse he’s far too prone to taking bad penalties. In that regard he sounds like a slight upgrade over Ben Chiarot.

Bogdan Kiselevich is a little bit more of a wildcard in that he spent eight seasons over in Europe, most notably with CSKA Moscow of the KHL where he was a first-team all-star in that league. He’s a well thought of player and has been one of Russia’s go-to picks in international play. Like Beaulieu he’s a decent puck mover and doesn’t mind playing physical, but also adds a touch of pro veteran experience. He’s looked ok for the Panthers this season but for whatever reason just couldn’t seem to gain the trust of the coaching staff there. The Jets – confirmed by Cheveldayoff in his presser – looked to bring him in this past summer before he chose to go to Florida.

Both contracts are expiring. Beaulieu – 26 years old – is a restricted free agent this summer. Kiselevich is a UFA. Especially in the case of Beaulieu, the next four to six weeks – on top of helping cover for possibly an injured Morrissey – will give Chevy, Paul Maurice and the Jets a chance to view these two players more up close with an eye to a possible spot on the 2019-2020 club.

We’ve been saying it for a while now, the Jets needed to do right by Nic Petan and give him a fresh start and it looks like that’s exactly what they gave him today.

We can debate just how much of a fair chance he’ll get with Toronto as there is no doubt GM Kyle Dubas seems to like him, but ultimately it’s up to Mike Babcock to play him and considering how he’s handled his own smaller sized fringe players, maybe we shouldn’t have too much hope for Nic.

If the Leafs manage to make the playoffs and get run out in the first round yet again, there is a chance that Babcock may be in just a hot enough seat that if his boss wants a more committed look at Petan on the ice come next season, he might be just so inclined to give him ice time he just wasn’t seeing in Winnipeg.

Godspeed Nic.

As for what the Jets got back? Par Lindholm may as well change his name to MEH Lindholm. He’s not overly skilled in anything and depending on who you ask and how the view the world, he’s either ok at winning faceoffs and playing on the penalty kill, or he doesn’t do either of those things overly well at all.

The biggest key is that while Petan is a pending RFA this summer, the 27 year old Lindholm is a UFA and unless can force his way into the Jets lineup over the next month and impress some people, he’s likely going to be gone once his contract expires and be one less contract the Jets will have to deal with going forward.

Some to that point would ask why would Cheveldayoff even trade for him then? The bottom line here is that this was more of a move for Petan than it was for the Jets.

Kudos to the reporter at the post-deadline presser who asked Chevy one simple question:

That pretty much sums up Jets fans collective reaction to the acquisition of the 37 year old veteran forward and it’s not unwarranted.

Why Matt Hendricks indeed.

Look at the Jets forward lineup, do you see a spot where Hendricks fits in?

Matt Hendricks is not cracking the top six group. Nor is he replacing Little, Perreault, Lowry, Copp or Tanev.

That only leaves Jack Roslovic as the only Jet that I could imagine Paul Maurice putting into the lineup for whatever reasoning he could come up with. Let’s not forget however that Roslovic was used just over a week ago on the Jets top powerplay unit, which is an indication of what Maurice thinks of him. Add Par Lindholm into this forward mix who has played 39 more gamed than Hendricks this season and is also ten years younger.

No, Matt Hendricks isn’t cracking this lineup anytime soon.

So why Matt Hendricks?

Chevy kind of alluded to it in his presser… Guys like Blake Wheeler and Dustin Byfuglien and even Paul Maurice mentioned that they could use a little bit more of a veteran presence in the dressing room – the Jets as he noted still had the youngest roster of players in the NHL going into today – and Hendricks is a well known and loved player with the boys in the locker room. Him and Buff seem to be kindred spirts when it comes to outdoorsey type things. He’s been around a bit, so he can be a positive voice for the younger players who might need it.

That’s it. This was a move to keep players happy. Hey, if Hendricks was good enough for Connor McDavid, he’s good enough for the Jets. Don’t underestimate how important it is to keep players happy in the dressing room with moves like this.

Not to mention, this addition – along with the trades made for the defensemen – helps keeps players like Mason Appleton and Tucker Poolman in the AHL where they can get ice time on a nightly basis and not sit up in an NHL press box. You can argue that’s not ideal for those two players, but Appleton needs more than 8:12 of ice time per night to develop and Poolman just needs to get on the ice period. With the Moose scrapping for a playoff spot, they could also use the roster help.

Try not to blow up your brain too much on this deal and throw yourself into a panic over it… At least not until Paul Maurice plays him over Andre Copp and gives him 10+ minutes of ice per night.

He won’t.

He could.

No, we’re pretty sure he won’t.

I’ve already wasted about 1400+ words of your time breaking down the day’s activities and really, Hayes and his impact and what he’ll do for the Jets going forward, if they truly missed out on Mark Stone and how the Jets could even retain him this summer all deserve their own individual posts and columns and we’ll have those over the next few days.

Safe to say, this was a solid deal for the Jets. It adds to the top six forward group, makes for an upgrade on the power play unit and again much like Paul Stastny last season, he will be eager to show off the goods for his pending free agency this summer.

Yes it comes at the expense of Lemieux, but if we’re being brutally honest the Jets just sold high on a player who had a good three week stretch of games filling in for an injured Nik Ehlers. His shooting percentage of 24.3% is high unsustainable. Patrik Laine at his best topped out at 17.6% while Alex Ovechkin’s career average is 12.7% and do you honestly think Brendan Lemieux is the next elite NHL sniper?

Not only did he convert goals at a high rate, but he was really on his best behavior on the ice an for the most part stayed away from taking dumb penalties – far better than we’ve seen from him in previous stints with the Jets. He deserves a ton of credit for stepping up his game at a time the Jets needed him and it possible he could continue to be a very productive bottom six forward for the Rangers.

Just, ya know, don’t bet on it.

The Jets were able to sell high on Lemieux, hold on to the likes of Roslovic and Sami Niku and get their second line center yet again.

Let us all just hope this summer they can find a second line center to have a long term relationship with.