Better luck next year: The Winnipeg Jets are stuck in mediocrity and do nothing to change it
Their problems start at the top and flow downward from the ownership, to the general manager, and on down to the roster.
Welcome to Better Luck Next Season. As each NHL team gets eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention, and then the Stanley Cup Playoffs, we will take a look at what went wrong, what went right, and what sits ahead for them. Today we start turning our attention to the teams that lost in the playoffs. First up: The Winnipeg Jets, who are rotten from the top down.
When NHL teams lose in the playoffs the head coach will usually use their immediate post-game press conference to sit in front of the media and express disappointment with the result, while also throwing in some cliches about how they “appreciate the guy’s efforts, we just didn’t get the job done.”
Winnipeg Jets head coach Rick Bowness did not do that after his team’s Game 5 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.
He was livid at the lack of “push back.”
Angry that it was “the same crap” he had seen dating all the way back to January and February.
He was not only infuriated, he was also “so disappointed and disgusted.”
Disgusted!
He answered three questions, talked for about 60 seconds, and then stormed off.
It was as raw and unfiltered as you will ever see a coach after a season-ending loss. His players did not particularly care for it, talking about how they wish he had addressed them face-to-face and said it directly to them instead of through the media. But given the way Bowness talked, something tells me he did address those concerns at some point over the past three months.
On top of that, professional athletes should not need a head coach to tell them to push back and play with passion with their season on the line in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
If you can not get yourself up for that moment and that game, well, that is on you, my brother and no other grown ass man is going to convince you to get yourself ready for that.
The players themselves? They are definitely a part of them problem. But they are not the problem.
Rick Bowness is not the problem, either.
They are are all simply a symptom of the actual problem.
When you have an organization like the Jets that is consistently mired in mediocrity and disappointment year after year, you have to start looking above what is happening at ice level. The leak in the ceiling isn’t coming from your apartment. It is coming from the clogged toilet above you.
The Jets’ toilet is overflowing directly from the owner and general manager offices.
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