Winnipeg Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff: “We Are a More Balanced Third Line”

Monday’s NHL Trade Deadline was one of the most productive in recent memory for Winnipeg Jets’ general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff.

Rather than outright labelling his club as solely a buyer or a seller, Chevy’s team of front office managerial staff actually ended up doing a bit of both, in what he called “tough business decisions”.

The biggest trade of the day – unloading Andrew Copp to New York alongside a sixth-round pick for two conditional second-round selections, a fifth-round pick, and prospect Morgan Barron – was one of the final deals Cheveldayoff made, but not a surprising move. Opting not to pour his heart out over the loss of Copp and his skillset, the longtime Jets’ GM rather spoke excitedly of the incoming talent that he had previously acquired throughout the hours leading to Copp’s departure.

“I certainly wanted to thank Andrew Copp for his many years of service here,” he reflected. “When I talked to him, I can still remember going to watch him playing college and the relationships that we’ve built. The guy that you draft and develop and has come through your organization, there’s always a little bit of a different feeling in making a trade like that.”

But Chevy continued, noticeably excited with the acquisitions of Mason Appleton (from Seattle) and Zach Sanford (from Ottawa).

“From our standpoint, we’re excited to get Mason Appleton back for all the same reasons,” Cheveldayoff added. “When we lost him in expansion, those were the same feelings that I had. And yesterday when I was able to talk to him, I told him, ‘I finally got you back’ because we tried several times throughout the course of the year to acquire Mason. He’s excited to get back here and to get back into a spot that he knows he flourished in. The acquisition of Zach Sanford, for us, gives us a really solid third line when we get back healthy with Adam Lowry. So, the acquisitions for us have given us a lot of balance in our lineup and I’m looking forward to it.”

NHL Trade Deadline LIVE – Full Coverage and Interviews All Day https://t.co/oggg0ltCeW

— Full Press Hockey (@FullPressNHL) March 21, 2022

According to the veteran NHL executive, adding Sanford and Appleton to the fold will actually create a “more balanced” third line – one that has featured Copp, Lowry and a combination of others over the past four months.

“We knew there would be some players out there that could fit in that third-line mold,” Chevy said. “We added two penalty killers into the lineup and obviously added a lot of size into the lineup in Sanford and Appleton. I think it gives that line purpose. I think it gives that line identity. And I think, again, having the penalty-killing aspect was important to us… I think it’s more balanced; From a size perspective and a harder-to-play-against perspective, with Sanford’s size, it gives us a little different element than we had before.”

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Not one to throw Copp under the bus, Chevy did acknowledge the difficulty in moving a player who whom he drafted and watched in college before seeing play out his full, seven-year career with the Jets.

#NHLJets trade forward Andrew Copp to the New York Rangers.

Copper told me last month for the @GameOnHockey cover story that he has ‘essentially’ followed Jacob Trouba’s career trajectory every stop along the way.

Well, once again, he has found his old Compuware AAA teammate.

— Carter Brooks (@CBrooksie84) March 21, 2022

“His leadership is there,” Cheveldayoff said of Copp’s presence in the room. “There’s a lot of friendships in there. I think it’ll be tough. You know, certainly, for a lot of guys, I don’t think they’ll ever lose those friendships. But again, I think that when we signed the contract that we had to sign to get him under the cap this year, I think guys knew that anything was always a possibility. And, you know, I don’t think anyone wanted to see him leave, but by the same token, these things happen. Trades happen. The way it looks for us is we traded Mason Appleton and Zach Sanford for Andrew Copp and we’re a more well-balanced third line.”

Whether the acquisitions of Sanford (for a fifth-round pick) and Appleton (for a fourth-round pick) do pan out will be a testament of the club’s playoff pursuit over the course of the remaining 19 regular-season games. According to Chevy, this task will now fall solely on the shoulders of his players.

“There is a level of consistency that we’re still striving to achieve,” he noted. “I think that for a period of time there we couldn’t score and we were kind of losing the one-goal games. I think we have 10 overtime losses and those catch up to you. If you get five of them going the other direction, I think you’re in a much different spot. But again, that’s hockey. You can put it on paper and you guys can ask me, “Is this a playoff team?” at the beginning of the season. You’ve got to play those 82 games to earn that right and we’ve got I think it’s 19 left to show ourselves.”

The #GoSensGo have traded Zach Sanford to the #GoJetsGo, per @DarrenDreger #NHL #NHLTradeDeadline pic.twitter.com/mmRZWpR5JP

— Full Press Hockey (@FullPressNHL) March 21, 2022

In order to make the late-day deals he did, Cheveldayoff did need to move Bryan Little‘s contract out of his club’s possession, meaning the lifelong Jet would no longer be under the control of Winnipeg. He did so by sending Little and Nathan Smith – a collegiate prospect who had no intention of signing with Winnipeg to the Arizona Coyotes for a fourth-round selection.

“It helps my graying hair slow down quite a bit,” Chevy laughed when asked about the relief of no longer seeing Little’s name on his long-term injured reserve.

“I had a conversation with Bryan Little today and thanked him very much for the help that he provided this organization. He had a (modified no-trade clause) and Arizona was on it, so we had to have him agree to waive it so that the contract could be traded there. It gives us the flexibility if you want to call it, in the salary cap world where we don’t have to plan to be an LTI team to that extent. You never know what is going to happen in the future but it gives you so many more things, the opportunity for your cap space to grow at the deadlines and the different things like that. You could go on and on. For us, it was something that was important and fell into our lap.”

Currently sitting at 29-24-10 and four points behind Vegas for the final Western Conference wild card playoff spot, the Jets will need to win roughly three-quarters of their remaining games to make it to the postseason. The efforts made by Kevin Cheveldayoff on Monday will certainly go a long way in helping that narrative.

“They have a lot of fight,” Chevy said of his roster. “That’s why I didn’t want to make a move – like we did with Copp – without making sure I could back fill. If there wasn’t an opportunity to grab some players, if there wasn’t an opportunity to grab a Mason Appleton, maybe I’m not standing here talking about that. Maybe I’m here telling you why we have our self rental. But because I was able to grab two pieces that do complement where we want to go, our roster is different but the core is the still the core. I certainly believe in those guys. We have some games here that come quickly at us. We have our work cut out for us, but we’ve rose to the challenge at different times but I’m sure we’ll do it again.”