The River City Sports Blog

Evander Kane: 29 goals and an improving season.

Barring a miracle down the stretch, it’s unlikely the Winnipeg Jets will make the playoffs in the National Hockey League’s Eastern Conference this spring but regardless, the 2011-12 season can only be considered a huge success.

And even Friday night’s 4-3 comeback win in overtime against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh — although it didn’t help the Jets make a real race of things with four games to play — was about as sweet as the game can get.

After next Saturday’s game with Tampa, the new kids in town will have filled the building every night for 41 regular season games — and all the pre-season games — and the city came alive, just as we all predicted. Even other teams noticed.

Jimmy Devellano

“The one thing I saw in Winnipeg this year was that every single seat was being used,” said Jimmy Devellano, the executive vice-president of the Detroit Red Wings. “Even in the most popular buildings in the league – Chicago, New York, Boston, Calgary, Vancouver, Detroit, there are some empty seats. The one thing I noticed every time I watched a Jets game is that every seat was full.”

And that, in a nutshell is what defined Winnipeg Jets hockey. It had nothing to do with the fact that the Jets took a run at the playoffs – at least, for a while, before fading late. It had little to do with the emergence of Evander Kane and Zach Bogosian, the improvement of goalie Ondrej Pavelec or the fans’ love affair with Dustin Byfuglien and the GST Line (Tanner Glass, Tim Stapleton and Chris Thorburn). None of that told the true story of Winnipeg Jets hockey.

The Seventh Man.

Instead, in this season of “The Big Return,” it was all about the people who bought the tickets and used them for every single game. MTS Centre was packed and the mythical “7^th Man” not only made an impression with Jets players and management, but also with players, coaches and executives throughout the National Hockey League.

When the Jets arrived from Atlanta on May 31, 2011, True North Sports and Entertainment laid out its plan for ticket sales. That plan worked to perfection and season tickets were sold out in 17 minutes – or about the same amount of time it takes to explain to friends from out of town how you get “Buff-lin” out of Byfuglien.

The return of the Jets after a 15-year absence was embraced by a city that was almost desperate to have the best hockey league in the world admit it was wrong in 1996 and come back, hat in hand, to the hockey centre of Canada.

From the day the team left, there was plenty of talk about the viability of the NHL as a business entity in a city of barely 700,000. Most economists believed the fans would respond, but few felt the corporate community could afford the huge leap in sponsorship costs from the days of the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose.

Jets salute the best fans in hockey.

As it turned out, the bean counters had nothing to fear: The boards, the game day magazine, the power ring, the spaces behind the benches, the television and radio packages, even things like the sponsorship of the 50/50 draw and the ice level itself, sold out in weeks.

As well, the folks at True North Sports and Entertainment run an extremely efficient (some might say, tight) operation and the team has one of the lowest payrolls in the NHL. Of course, that might be reflected in the fact the team has never been very good. Remember, this year’s team was simply the Winnipeg version of the Atlanta Thrashers, a franchise that has now made the playoffs only once in 13 seasons.

Ondrej Pavelec

On the ice, the young Jets showed flashes of brilliance, but for the most part, they were terribly inconsistent and had virtually no chance away from MTS Centre. Coming down to the final week of the season when they still had a mathematical chance to reach the post-season, the Jets were 23-13-4 at home and just 13-21-4 on the road. They were six points out of the final playoff spot with only four games to play.

The real issue with the Jets home-and-away record is best illustrated by the numbers put up by goaltender Ondrej Pavelec. In 35 games at home, Pavelec allowed 82 goals for a 2.42 goals against average and a .919 save percentage. Meanwhile, in 30 games away from Winnipeg, he allowed 98 goals for a goals against average of 3.42 and a save percentage of just .894.

Zach Bogosian against the Flyers.

It’s likely, when the season ends, the Jets will finish somewhere between 10^th and 12^th in the Eastern Conference. With the development of young players such as Pavelec (24), Evander Kane (20), Zach Bogosian (21), Blake Wheeler (25) and Alexander Burmistrov (20), the Jets should have a bright future, but the reality is this: The team can’t make the playoffs, hasn’t made the playoffs once in the last five years and showed no signs this year of improving dramatically enough to make the playoffs next year.

At the NHL draft in June, the Jets need to select wisely and probably make some trades. They have seven players — Jim Slater, Tanner Glass, Kyle Wellwood, Tim Stapleton, Randy Jones, Mark Flood and Chris Mason — who will become unrestricted free agents on July 1 (players who can sign with any team in the NHL and the Jets will get nothing in return), and they obviously must do something to improve for next season if they intend to reach the post-season. They must re-sign Glass, Stapleton and Slater or they’ll lose the only grit and checking toughness that they possess.

Right now, the Jets could use three things: some skilled, fast, defensive-minded defensemen; a big scorer (or two); and some depth.

Paul Postma

Now, to be fair, the Jets are quite strong on defense. In fact, the defensive group is not only the deepest part of the team, but perhaps the two top prospects in the organization are defensemen: Zach Redmond and Paul Postma. They are both skilled, offensive minded defensemen who played in the AHL all-star game this year. But the Jets have trouble – when it counted – with keeping the puck out of their own net. And that might not be, entirely, the goalie’s fault.

Meanwhile, the Jets can certainly afford to make a few moves and try to get better at the draft. It’s not like they don’t have money or salary cap room. After all, the salary cap is $64 million and the Jets payroll is currently at $53 million.

Empty Thrashers Arena. Winnipeg is a gold mine.

And make no mistake; this franchise is making money hand over fist. This franchise has been as successful or even more than anyone had hoped.  The Jets are 13th overall in NHL receipts per game even though Winnipeg’s rink is the smallest in the NHL at 15,004. Winnipeg makes $1.24 million per game. According to the NHL, last year in Atlanta, the Thrashers made $331,000 per game. The Jets also have the seventh most expensive average ticket in the NHL: an average price at $76.41 per seat.

When the team arrived in Winnipeg from Atlanta at the start of the 2011-12 season, Cheveldayoff and company made it clear that the new organization would be patient. They would not do anything rash and would build with youth and draft picks. After all, they have five years of sold-out buildings and they know their fans will also be patient and wait for them to build a legitimate contender.

Trouble is no one is absolutely certain how long the honeymoon will last. Jets tickets are not inexpensive and Winnipeg fans are among the most knowledgeable in North America. Those savvy fans, the ones who are shelling out big prices for seats in the building, will, at some point demand that their favorite team to compete for a title.

Although Cheveldayoff has some time to build a winner, not even he knows exactly how much time he has.

(Listen to Scott Taylor every Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. on NCI FM 105.5 in Winnipeg and Streetz 104.7)