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Jack Roslovic Adds His Name To An Already Strange Jets Off-Season

Photo credit: © Nuccio DiNuzzo-USA TODAY Sports

By Art Middleton

Jun 6, 2019, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Jun 6, 2019, 00:58 EDT

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The 2018-19 NHL season is technically still ongoing at the moment, but the Jets have already had a crazy off-season with all sorts of rumors of locker-room strife, players about to be traded, players possibly asking or not asking for trade out of Winnipeg, a former hockey goon “breaking” a trade that nobody actually believed him on but still had a good laugh over, and now reports that Jack Roslovic has fired his agent, hired Claude Lemieux to be his new agent with word also getting out that Roslovic demanded a trade out of Winnipeg at least once, if not multiple times.

It started Wednesday afternoon with Aaron Porzline of The Athletic tweeting the following about Roslovic and his agent situation:

Aaron Portzline

@Aportzline

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#NHLJets C Jack Roslovic, a Columbus native, has fired his Columbus-based agent Ken Robinson, who has represented him for more than six years. Roslovic asked Winnipeg for a trade at least once last season, sources told The Athletic, because of a lack of role/playing time. 1/2

11:21 PM · Jun 5, 2019

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Aaron Portzline

@Aportzline

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Roslovic, 22, was a first-round draft pick (No. 25 overall) in 2015. He totaled 9-15-24 in 77 games, but played only 9:44 (fourth line) per game despite playing on the power play. He’s now with agent Claude Lemieux and 4SPORTS Team. 2/2 #NHLJets

11:22 PM · Jun 5, 2019

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The interesting part about that – aside from the news he was joining an agency group who is the head of North American hockey for 4Sports – is that at the end of the Jets season there had been some speculation on the part of Elliotte Friedman that Roslovic would want a bigger responsibility on the ice be it in Winnipeg or somewhere else.

“Jack Roslovic wants more of an opportunity, whether there or elsewhere.”

The Winnipeg News’ Mike McIntyre then added on saying that Roslovic’s frustration had been well known.

Mike McIntyre

@mikemcintyrewpg

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As Aaron mentioned in his follow-up Tweet, Claude Lemieux (father of Roslovic’s good buddy, Brendan, traded by the #NHLJets in February) has taken over. Can confirm Roslovic was unhappy at times with his role, and his former agent had many chats with Kevin Cheveldayoff. #wfp

Aaron Portzline

@Aportzline

12:30 AM · Jun 6, 2019

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Mike McIntyre

@mikemcintyrewpg

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Replying to @mikemcintyrewpg

Jack Roslovic will be RFA next summer. This issue got bigger as season went on, especially after Roslovic awarded NHL 1st Star in early February, only to see icetime/role reduced. But #NHLJets balked at trade offers that came, Paul Maurice called Roslovic vital part of future.

12:33 AM · Jun 6, 2019

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Mike doesn’t specifically mention that there was a trade request, but he also doesn’t deny and “many chats” with the general manager would lead one to believe that requests were certainly made. Although this information popping up does lead to wonder why it wasn’t a news item back in February/March.

Thankfully about an hour later we had clarification of the whole situation from Roslovic’s now-former agent Ken Robinson who took to Twitter himself to clear the air.

There is little doubt Jack Roslovic has a bright future – we stated as much last week in his yearly player review – but while he needs to continue to show improvement and a consistency in his game, some of the onus is also on Paul Maurice and the coaching staff to put him in positions and lines that will help him succeed. Giving him limited fourth line minutes certainly isn’t ideal.

This Jack Roslovic drama – if we can call it that – is just one more interesting plot line to add to what is shaping up to be the most interesting and perhaps most critical summer in Winnipeg hockey history. We can’t wait for tomorrow when the next headline will be Mathieu Perreault cutting himself in a shaving accident or some sort of crazy headline like that.