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Home , Blake Wheeler, Claude Giroux, Connor McDavid, Johnny Gaudreau, Mark Scheifele, Nikita Kucherov

Winnipeg Free Press https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/jets/leading-with-his-hart- 474754773.html?k=76Eijr

Leading with his Hart Wheeler's hand on the stick responsible for Jets' altitude, steady course through injury turbulence, putting him in NHL's MVP conversation

By: Mike McIntyre

He is the heart and soul of the team, setting the tone on a nightly basis and raising the bar with his impressive play.

He has repeatedly demonstrated that he is selfless leader, pushing greater good of the organization above any personal interests.

He is the face of the franchise, not only leading by example on the ice, but off it as well.

He seems to be getting better with age, on pace for a career season at a when many players often see a drop in production.

He is a mentor and role model to a crop of young talent who speak glowingly about the impact he's had on them.

He is , captain of the . And he is a legitimate Hart Trophy candidate as the player deemed to be "most valuable to his team."

Yes, there is still the final quarter of the NHL regular-season left to play. But Wheeler's accomplishments through the first 60 games of the season should not be overlooked. Or under- appreciated.

Wheeler, 31, has already matched a career-high with 52 assists, which puts him second overall in the league in that category. And many of them, especially lately, have been of the highlight- reel variety, leaving fans and viewers wondering how in the world he found what appeared to be a microscopic seam to make a pass that led to a .

With 17 goals added to his assist total, Wheeler is tied for fourth in NHL scoring heading into Wednesday night's action. He is just nine points off his career-best of 78, set two years ago, and still has 22 games to play.

Only (78), (70) and (70) have put up more points than his 69.

None of those players have done it while switching positions mid-season, as Wheeler did in late December when No. 1 went down with a shoulder injury that sidelined him for 16 games. Not only did Wheeler move from right wing to the middle, he was carrying around a couple of teenagers in Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor at times while facing opponents' elite checking lines. And he still managed to put up a point-per-game in an unfamiliar role and lead the Jets to an 11-2-3 record without Scheifele.

Sure, is having a fantastic season in the Jets' net, which should earn him some Vezina Trophy votes. But make no mistake: Wheeler is the prime reason this team looks primed to make a legitimate run at Lord Stanley's mug come spring.

It's clear Wheeler would rather get a root canal than talk about his accomplishments, constantly preaching a "team-first" approach and bristling at personal queries. His intensity often comes through in his dealings with media, as he can be sour and surly and downright confrontational at times. However, it’s worth noting he is the most accessible player on the team. Nearly every practice, every morning skate, after every game, Wheeler is typically standing in his stall waiting to answer questions while most teammates have already hit the showers and checked out.

'It starts right at the top with Wheels. He's a guy that drives this team each and every night.' - Mark Scheifele

But take a close listen to what others are saying about him. Scheifele, who has blossomed into a true star, practically gushes every time he speaks about Wheeler.

"It starts right at the top with Wheels. He's a guy that drives this team each and every night. Whether he's on the wing or centre, it starts right from the top and I think everyone follows his lead," Scheifele said recently. "He's the most favourite player I've ever played with."

Coach , who has spent more than 1,400 games behind the bench in his career, is on record saying he's never had a player like Wheeler in his fold.

"Everybody else wants to play with him," Maurice said recently of the impact Wheeler has. "He is absolutely driven to maximize his game. How he eats, how he trains. How he mentally prepares."

Connor, Laine and other young stars such as and Jack Roslovic regularly go out of their way to praise the captain.

If Wheeler has a fault, it’s his penchant for taking some ill-advised minor penalties, a clear sign his frustration with pushing for perfection at all times sometimes backfires. His 19 minor penalties are second-only to . But he's also a key piece of power play and killing units that rank among the league's best.

So who and what stands in the way of Wheeler capturing the Hart when they hand out the hardware in June during the flashy ceremony in ?

Here's a close look at five main contenders, plus 10 dark-horse candidates:

1) NIKITA KUCHEROV, He's the NHL's leading scorer with 32 goals and 46 assists through 60 games. And he's helped lead the Lightning to a 40-17-3 record, which puts them on top of the league standings.

Kucherov finished No. 1 in the Professional Hockey Writers Association midseason awards vote that came out last month. And likely nothing has changed to knock him off the perch as the favourite.

You could make an argument that Kucherov benefits from playing on a team, and a line, with superstar , who may garner some Hart votes of his own, with 24 goals and 44 assists in 60 games. How much of Kucherov's success is a product of riding shotgun with Stamkos?

Of course, Wheeler also has a high-scoring linemate in Scheifele. But as mentioned earlier, he had to go without him for 16 games this year and didn't seem to miss a beat.

2) EVGENI MALKIN, Malkin is on pace for his finest offensive season since 2011-12, with 33 goals and 37 assists through 57 games. He's also helped spark a red-hot Penguins run that has them looking poised to make a run at a third-straight after a lacklustre start to their season.

Like Kucherov, Malkin no doubt benefits from having plenty of other superstar talent around him, including and . However, unlike Kucherov, he doesn't play on a regular line with those two. His most recent mates in a game were Carl Hagelin and Bryan Rust.

3) NATHAN MacKINNON, A breakthrough season for MacKinnon, with 25 goals and 40 assists in 51 games. That puts him second in the league, just behind Kucherov, in terms of points-per-game.

He has led a resurgent Avalanche team that is fighting for a playoff spot, just one season after finishing last in the NHL.

MacKinnon finished No. 2 in voting in the PHWA midseason awards.

And while the Hart is supposed to go to the player deemed most valuable to his team, you have to wonder if MacKinnon's chances won't be impacted if Colorado fails to qualify for the . Time will tell.

4) CONNOR McDAVID, Oilers You won't get too much argument that McDavid is probably the most talented player in the league. He's having another terrific offensive season, with 26 goals and 43 assists in 59 games.

But how much should he get docked by the fact the Oilers are a tire-fire this season, among the worst in the league?

Some might suggest that bolsters his case, that McDavid is essentially a one-man show on an otherwise pitiful squad. And they may be right. But it seems hard to fathom a Hart winner could come from a team that hardly looks competitive on many nights.

5) , Devils Perhaps the fastest-rising candidate of the bunch. Hall has been on a tear lately, with at least a point in all 19 games he's played in 2018. He has 13 goals and 14 assists in that stretch. He's up to 25 goals and 38 assists in 55 games this season.

New Jersey is also locked in a tough battle in the ultra-competitive , currently sitting in fourth place, which is good enough for the top wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. If Hall can pull the Devils into the playoffs — somewhere the franchise hasn't been for the last five seasons — his candidacy will get a boost.

10 OTHER DARK-HORSE CANDIDATES TO WATCH: Alex Ovechkin (WAS), Anze Kopitar (LA), Brad Marchand (BOS), Claude Giroux (PHI), (NYI), Johnny Gaudreau (CGY), Jonathan Marchessault (VGK), (BOS), Sidney Crosby (PIT), Steven Stamkos (TB).

Winnipeg Sun http://winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/winnipeg-jets/jets-snaps-do-the-jets-have-another- gear-penalty-kill-plummets-hellebuyck-feels-wear-and-tear

JETS SNAPS: Do the Jets have another gear? Penalty kill plummets, Hellebuyck feels "wear and tear"

By Paul Friesen

It’s the big unknown swirling around the Winnipeg Jets. The one nagging at fans and the one that could determine what the GM does between now and the trade deadline, Monday.

We know what this surprising bunch has been through 60 games: one of the top five teams in the NHL.

But does it have the makeup to find another gear for the stretch drive and the playoffs?

After surviving — thriving, actually — through one of the more bitter winters this town has experienced in a while, are the Jets built for success into the spring?

Or could all this promise melt away, exposing bare spots we didn’t know were there?

After Tuesday’s 4-3 loss to the L.A. Kings, I asked captain Blake Wheeler about his team’s ability to reach another level over the last 22 games.

“You’d like to be playing your best hockey at the end of the year,” Wheeler said. “That remains to be seen. We’re going to do our best to be doing that at the end of the season. And Lord willing, we’ll have a chance to play in the playoffs and hopefully, we’ll be playing our best hockey at that time of year.”

The just-completed, 10-game homestand didn’t provide the answer.

I heard it said the Jets did just fine, but their 6-3-1 mark actually fell far short of what they’d done at home previously this season.

They entered the homestand with a home winning percentage of 83.3 percent. In the 10 games, they grabbed just 65 percent of a possible 20 points.

The homestand was a chance to get one hand on top spot in the Central Division. They didn’t.

But that’s history.

The last 22 games include nine against division rivals, plenty of opportunity, still, to pound that flag into the ground.

IN THE CREASE Head coach Paul Maurice a few days ago hinted he might not give Connor Hellebuyck a night off until March, when the Jets hit the road for six straight.

You wonder if his thinking might change this weekend, when Winnipeg plays back-to-back nights at St. Louis, Friday, and Dallas, Saturday.

Because Hellebuyck, who’s started nine straight and 15 of the last 16, hinted at feeling some fatigue after the 4-3 loss to the Kings.

“I’ve liked my games in the past a bit more,” Hellebuyck said. “I still feel like I have more to give. The wear and tear on your body is going to get you one of these games.”

Hellebuyck went on to second-guess his decision to take Monday off and skate the morning of the game, instead of the other way around.

If the Jets weren’t down to their fourth-string goalie (Eric Comrie) at the No. 2 spot, you’d have to think Maurice would be giving serious consideration to resting Hellebuyck in one of the games this weekend.

But with Steve Mason and Michael Hutchinson still sidelined by concussions, it seems it’s Hellebuyck’s show, for now.

Going into Wednesday games, only four goalies had more starts than Hellebuyck’s 48 this season: the Leafs Frederik Andersen (51), of the Rangers (50), Sergei Bobrovsky in Columbus and in Tampa (both at 49).

We’ll leave you with a statistical comparison.

At the 50-game mark of the Jets season, Hellebuyck had a .924 save percentage and 2.35 goals-against-average.

Through his last nine starts, those numbers are .912 and 2.44.

OIL LEAK In just two games, the Jets penalty kill has dropped from No. 5 in the NHL to a tie for tenth, giving up a pair of goals in each.

“If you spread out these goals, you just brush them off your shoulder,” Hellebuyck said. “They’re all clumped right now.”

Clumped or not, Hellebuyck acknowledged he had trouble seeing both of L.A.’s power-play goals, Tuesday.

“Maybe that’s on me, maybe that’s on the guys in front of me,” he said. “I’d have to watch it on video. I’m pretty sure it’s on me, battling a little bit.”

TIME TO PLAY The Jets sent defenceman down to the farm, Wednesday, giving him a chance to get into a Wednesday night game with the .

Poolman, 24, had been a healthy scratch for eight straight games.

Given both the Jets and Moose were at home, some of us had wondered why Poolman and Comrie, both young, developing players, weren’t being re-assigned for an AHL game, here and there.

Since other teams do it, we wondered if maybe the Jets had an unwritten policy against it. After all, players take a big pay cut when they’re assigned to the minors.

Maurice said Tuesday it’s a hockey decision.

“Eric, no, because the other two goaltenders are injured and he’s our backup here right now and we need him healthy,” Maurice said. “We have discussed Tucker Poolman doing that. We looked at possibly (Monday) or (Wednesday) being a more sensible option. Everybody’s got some nicks and bruises so you kind of wait to see how we come out of the first game, how sore everybody is.”

Obviously, the defence corps came out of Tuesday’s game unscathed, so Poolman, Winnipeg’s fifth-round pick in the 2013 , finally got into a game, as the Moose hosted Milwaukee.

Expect the “demotion” to last one day.

Sportsnet.ca https://www.nhl.com/news/winnipeg-gm-kevin-cheveldayoff-proactive-ahead-of-nhl-trade- deadline/c-296193120

Jets GM making ‘a lot of outgoing phone calls’ ahead of trade deadline

By Mike Johnston

With the Winnipeg Jets having established themselves unequivocally as a top-five team in the league, they’re firmly in the “buyers” column ahead of the Feb. 26 NHL Trade Deadline.

Jets general manager , instead of waiting for fellow GMs to reach out to him, is making a concerted effort to see if there’s anything out there that could potentially help his team go on a deep playoff run.

“There are a lot of outgoing phone calls in the situation we’re in, more than incoming,” Cheveldayoff told Tim Campbell of NHL.com. “When you’re in a situation like we’re in, that we’ve earned the opportunity to look around to see if you can acquire, you maybe are a little more proactive about the outgoing calls than the incoming ones.”

It’s a relatively unfamiliar position Cheveldayoff finds himself in. The Jets have only qualified for the post-season once, in 2015, and that’s really the only time they’ve been buyers at the deadline. That year they acquired rental players Jiri Tlusty and Lee Stempniak, but the current edition of the Jets is much healthier than the Jets team from three seasons ago.

“At that time, we made some assessments that we needed to add some players to fill in our bottom six, our fourth line, to allow [head coach Paul Maurice] to play four lines,” Cheveldayoff said. “I think if we did nothing from an acquisition standpoint [this year], I think we have a much greater depth within our organization. If you ultimately want to win the prize, you might need more depth because I’m not sure you ever have enough depth so those are things you assess. When the roster is healthy, we have tremendous confidence in it.”

Cheveldayoff was named GM of the Jets in 2011, prior to the franchise’s inaugural season in Winnipeg. He has made 24 total trades since then, but the vast majority of which have been of little consequence.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friendman wrote in his latest 31 Thoughts that no-trade and no-movement clauses have hindered the Jets’ ability to pull off a trade. But either way, Cheveldayoff isn’t desperate to make a move—especially when you consider the talent that will be inserted back into the lineup when a handful of Jets players return from various injuries.

“Our biggest deadline acquisitions may be after March 1 when we get [Jacob] Trouba back and hopefully and Brandon Tanev and Shawn Matthias back, and Steve Mason and Michael Hutchinson, too,” Cheveldayoff said. “We have guys having success right now, but we have those guys waiting as additions. In approaching the deadline, you keep all options open but you are looking for the right fit.”

Cheveldayoff added: “I really think you have to look at what’s around you and what’s available to you and then you make that assessment. Does it really make you better in an area you think can help you? You don’t just throw caution to the wind to get the perceived most-talented player that’s available because they’ll be a free agent or for whatever reason. It really comes down to it being a good fit in order to make a move and it has to fit the chemistry of your group.”