CALGARY — The message delivered by Winnipeg Jets coach Rick Bowness to a pair of struggling scorers was both loud and clear on Monday.
Asked by the Free Press what he needs to see from Nikolaj Ehlers and Cole Perfetti, the veteran bench boss didn’t mince his words.
“Well right now they’re spending way too much time in our zone. They are. So their puck management is going to have to get a lot better,” Bowness began.
“And they’re going to have to generate some offence, which they’re not doing on a consistent basis right now. There’s one or two rushes a game, that’s not enough. If they can manage the puck a lot better going through the neutral zone and spend less time in our zone and then they’re going to create offence. But right now it’s the exact opposite.”
Bowness can be blunt, but he also doesn’t play games through the media. Anything he steps up to say in front of a microphone has been repeatedly stated behind closed doors to the players themselves. To that extent, he met privately with Ehlers and Perfetti a few hours prior to puck drop on Monday afternoon against the Flames.
“We went over a couple things. We’re hoping to get them back up where they belong in terms of minutes. But that’s going to be up to them,” Bowness continued.
“Like we’re past the point of just giving guys ice time. We’ll give you the ice time, but now you’ve got to work hard to maintain it. We’ve got 30 games to go. We’re making a big push here. We’ll give them lots of time to work through it, but right now they know the expectations we have.”
The early returns? More of the same, unfortunately. Ehlers and Perfetti were both held off the scoresheet once again, with each player going minus-two in the 6-3 loss to the Flames.
Most notably, with the Jets trailing 4-3 and just under seven minutes left in the third period Monday, Perfetti got pushed off the puck in the Calgary zone, couldn’t keep up with the play going on the other way and watched as Andrew Mangiapane made it 5-3.
The checking attempt by Ehlers on the play — a bit of a fly-by if you will — won’t endear him to his coach either.
To be clear, there were plenty of other skaters who had tough days at the office, including the entire top line of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Gabe Vilardi. But that trio, along with second-line centre Sean Monahan, have found ways to contribute offensively, especially on the suddenly scorching-hot power play.
Not so for the other two members of the top six. Perfetti has now gone 10 games without a point and has just one assist in the last 13 outings. Ehlers has a solitary helper in the past eight games.
Both were stapled to the bench for much of the third period in Saturday’s 4-2 win in Vancouver, with Perfetti (10:52) and Ehlers (12:10) nearing career lows in ice time. On Monday, those numbers were back to normal levels as Perfetti played 14:56 (with four shots on goal), while Ehlers had 15:16 (one shot on net).
You wonder at what point Bowness might consider reuniting the trio of Ehlers, Scheifele and Vilardi, which was lighting it up earlier this season when Connor was out with a knee injury. Bowness has been asked about that recently, but the biggest issue is he doesn’t want to have Perfetti shifting to right-wing (on what would be a line with Connor and Monahan).
However, if this drought continues, he may have no choice but to try something else, as the status quo is not exactly working right now.
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Mike McIntyre
Sports reporter
Mike McIntyre grew up wanting to be a professional wrestler. But when that dream fizzled, he put all his brawn into becoming a professional writer.
