Dreger: Even playfully, message delivered to Jets' Kane
/Darren Dreger was on TSN 1040 Wednesday afternoon.
On the Blake Wheeler/Evander Kane report from ESPN’s Craig Custance, and the subsequent tweet back from Kane. Playful or ticked?
“Well, I think a little of both. We know Craig Custance. I mean, this guy is an exceptional reporter. I don’t have any issue with how the story was written, and I doubt very much that Blake Wheeler does. But it’s in Blake Wheeler’s best interests to poke Evander Kane to get him going (laughs) out of the gate, and that’s in the best interests of the Winnipeg Jets. To me it’s somewhat obvious and I think that Wheeler would think that as well.
“What I know is this – that Paul Maurice’s challenge this year is to convince Evander Kane that he’s part of the solution, he’s not the problem. And maybe that’s also part of trying to convince the fan base in Winnipeg that that’s the case as well. But to do that, he needs help from Evander Kane. And he needs him to be a more consistent performer. If Maurice loads up his top two lines, like I suspect he might, then Evander Kane is definitely going to have to deliver on a night in and night out basis. And so is Blake Wheeler.
“So I think that it was a playful jab but it was also a message that’s clearly delivered.”
On if the Jets can make the playoffs:
“Boy, that’s tough, isn’t it. I mean, they can’t have any stumbles over the course of the regular season and that’s a tall task for any team. The best of the best go through trouble spots. The Los Angeles Kings, the Chicago Blackhawks, and on and on it goes. It’s how you manage those and limit those that ultimately lends to whether or not you’re a playoff contender and the Winnipeg Jets just need every cylinder firing.
“And it’s easy to say it starts in goal with Ondrej Pavelec, but come on – it starts in goal. A couple of years ago I think he was named team MVP by his teammates. He’s got to return to form. There’s been ample reports that he’s back in shape. ‘He’s lean, he’s mean, and he’s ready.’ Well, he’s got to prove that now, and then the offence has to get going and I know the message from Maurice again to the group is that we’ve got to play a better brand of team defence than we did last season, but there’s got to be balance in that. Good team defence without squelching any creativity, which will obviously fall on the shoulders of those in the top nine of the forwards of the Winnipeg Jets.
“So it’s a tall order, but everybody starts at the same point and everybody has the same opportunities.”
Source: TSN 1040/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey