Cole Perfetti: Mistakes Make the Man

The Winnipeg Jets have found another diamond in the rough. With Kyle Connor, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Mark Scheifele continuing to run the offence up front, a fresh face has appeared on the scene.

Skating in his ninth career NHL game on Tuesday evening was 20-year-old Cole Perfetti.

Having already had his senior running of the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship cancelled midway through the round robin, the 5-foot-11, 177-pound forward had been teetering between being sent back down to the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose, or burning a year off his entry-level contract and remaining with the Jets.

He clearly earned his place on the team with a gutsy offensive showing on Tuesday. Needing to appear just twice more time this season for his first year of pro with the Jets to officially kick in, the youngest rostered member led all Jets with two assists on the night, as Winnipeg dropped its first home contest since December 19 to the visiting Florida Panthers 5-3.

“I definitely think the more you play, the more you get comfortable, the more confidence you get,” Perfetti said of his development through nine NHL contests. “Game by game it’s getting a little better but obviously it’s a pretty tough league and it’s gonna take time to learn. I definitely feel it’s slowing down by a hair and getting a little more confidence to make some plays.”

He earned a nifty helper on Winnipeg’s second goal of the game, setting up Kyle Connor cross-ice on a backhand dangle, before outwaiting a sprawling Panthers’ defender and sliding another primary assist to Pierre-Luc Dubois on a power play strike in the second period.

“I think the big thing with him is his decision-making, his poise with the puck and just look at the power-play goal,” Jets head coach Dave Lowry said post-game. “He sets up Dooby. He makes a real nice move. He holds onto the puck. He attacks and for a young guy, he’s got a lot of poise.”

Lowry, an experience hockey man, knows what it takes to succeed in the big leagues. From what he has seen of Perfetti thus far, all signs indicate the youngster may be here to stay.

“He’s learning,” Lowry added. “And like all these young guys that come into the league, they’ve been allowed, in the leagues where they’ve come from, and Cole was the beneficiary of playing in the American League last year and again this year, that they have habits in their game. You can get away with it at the lower levels. You can’t get away with it here. He’s a very detail-oriented kid. He wants to learn. He wants to get better and that’s something he’ll continue to work on every day. And that is something that he’ll continue to get better on. He’s a very positive kid and he wants to learn.”

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That willingness to succeed goes a long way. And it isn’t just Perfetti’s coach that is taking notice.

“Whether it’s a division game, or whether it’s playing a team out east, one of the top teams in the league that plays a fast game, whether it’s on the powerplay or whether it’s kind of D-zone, he’s kind of learning on the fly and the more games you play, the more comfortable you get under your skin,” winger Paul Stastny said of his teammate. “The chemistry he’s built with this linemates, I think makes it a little easier for him and he’s starting to make more plays offensively. And, defensively, I think he’s learned to realize he doesn’t have to force feed those guys if there’s nothing; just to clear it out and then kind of turn the page and then worry about the next shift.”

In his 16th NHL season, Stastny has certainly seen it all. Falling into patterns such as offence-first, lazy backchecks and soft puck battles tend to be fatal flaws exhibited by young, flashy forwards. Perfetti, as he says, has been able to display his skill in both zones, while making up for his errors one at a time.

“When you’re a smart player like this, you kind of get used to it. If you make a mistake, you learn from it, you don’t make that same mistake again,” Stastny added. “And every game you’re out there, you get more and more comfortable… It’s something that the more it happens in games, when you’re a smart player, it just has to happen once for you to remember it and for it to click in your head and you kind of learn from that forever.”

Learning on the fly certainly does come with its failures. But the rookie forward is not dwelling upon his transgressions. Taking advice from the veteran Stastny, Perfetti has been able to right his wrongs, one misstep at a time.

“Mistakes happen every shift, that’s a part of the game,” Perfetti reflected. “Obviously, you don’t want to make mistakes. And especially being the young guy it sucks to do that and be the reason we are stuck in our own zone, or giving up chances. But I think it has been limited and trying, like Stas said, do it one time and that’s how you learn from it. You’re not just going to know automatically, it’s a feeling-out process.”

Having spent the 2020-21 season as a one-time COVID-19 AHL-exempt underager with the Moose, Perfetti battled the top players from North America’s top developmental professional hockey league. He managed nine goals and 26 points in 32 games, before going on to put up six goals and 15 points in 17 games with Manitoba this season before his recall.

“It’s definitely been a huge adjustment. It’s a lot faster and the guys are heavier, and sticks are a lot better,” he said. “Being a 20-year-old kid who has only played nine games, there is a lot of feeling out. It’s getting better, there have been a few times where I’ve made a couple mistakes, but it’s learning from those on video. Put them in the vault and just remember the solution for that play in the future.”

Thursday’s game against Vancouver will be Perfetti’s 10th NHL contest, that is if he is in the Jets’ lineup. But with the way he is showing up day-after-day, it shouldn’t be a difficult decision for management to make.