Jets’ Captain Blake Wheeler Laments a Season Gone Too Soon

Winnipeg Jets captain, Blake Wheeler, addressed the team’s lost season, calling his current mood, ‘deflating’.

For Blake Wheeler, it’s back to square one in Winnipeg.

The Winnipeg Jets saw their faint flicker of postseason hope burn out in the wee morning hours of the morning on Thursday. With the Vegas Golden Knights beating the Washington Capitals in overtime in a late-night Wednesday battle, the Jets were officially eliminated from the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

For those immersed in all things Jets, this news did not come as a surprise, nor was it by way of a sudden fall from glory.

The team was just unable to put together a full team effort on a consistent enough basis to be considered for the postseason.

Former head coach Paul Maurice saw it back in mid-December. His replacement, Dave Lowry has talked about it on many occasions over the past few months.

On Thursday morning, team captain Blake Wheeler addressed it, calling his current mood, ‘deflating’.

“There have been years in the past where the expectations were really low and we had really good teams and were competing for championships,” the 35-year-old said. “This year, it seemed like expectations were high and we’ve obviously fallen well short of those. This is the best part of the year to be a hockey player, except when you’re in our shoes, then it’s the worst. It’s really disappointing. It’s hard to put into words, the feeling and you know, what it feels like. It just feels like we’re back to Square One. We built so long to get to a championship level and sitting here is pretty deflating.”

Tasked with leadership in a room missing a number of key pieces from the ‘glory years’ of seasons past, a new coach taking over the reins midway through the season, and the abundant threat of COVID and its ever-changing variants, Wheeler had a lot on his plate.

“I would have to take responsibility for that,” he said of the dressing room. “It’s been my job to build the culture here and I’ve taken a lot of pride in that over the years. I certainly look in the mirror on that one, and where we’ve gotten to, the team that we were and the team that we are now – I don’t hide from that at all. I certainly take the responsibility for where this team sits. Hopefully, we have a locker room full of guys doing the same thing. Like I said, I’ve tried to build this into something we can be proud of, something that can be a championship level every year. And when you fall short of that you’ve got to take responsibility for it.”

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For the first time in, well, ever, the Jets’ captain also missed significant time due to injury. Of his team’s 77 games played thus far, Wheeler has only skated in 60 contests. And despite a slow start, the right winger did produce well during the games he participated in.

According to the former first-round pick, the mentality surrounding his team’s final four games will be no different than any other: The Jets will play to win.

“For me, it doesn’t change. I’m trying to win the game,” he said. “I hate what’s going on right now. I hate losing. That’s not just me, we have a lot of guys who don’t like losing and don’t like the results that we’re getting. Try to win, that’s it. Win the game tonight and get some sort of good feeling back in our room so, like I said, go home and end on the right note.”

Currently posting 13 goals and 55 points in his 60 games, Wheeler operated very near his career point-per-game average. Offensively, the Jets have had a number of breakthrough seasons – for instance, Kyle Connor‘s career year and Pierre-Luc Dubois‘ resurgence – but defensively, things have gone from bad to worse, as shown by the club’s dismal goals against, its team save percentage and penalty kill effectiveness. For Wheeler, he has been left with more questions than answers.

“It’s been a while now since we’ve been in this spot,” he said candidly. “A lot of young players, a lot of guys that we really believed in that were going to get us to that next level. That obviously came to fruition. Now, it just kind of feels like we’re searching for answers, not really sure what happened and we have more established players and some key spots you’d of thought we’d have more success. There’s similarities and some differences, I would say.”

Mentality Doesn’t Change For Blake Wheeler, Jets

With reference to the team’s upcoming stretch of four home games to close out the season, Wheeler did say that his crew will put forth an effort that fans can look forward to, despite having to watch the playoffs on television this year.

“For now, it’s just a matter of finishing the year the right way and playing hard. Obviously, we’re going to have four home games in front of our fans, so showing them that we’re still in the fight and playing hard for them, so we can end with some self-respect.”

Missing out on postseason hockey by way of the team’s overtime and shootout record, (11 losses), should Winnipeg have been able to capitalize on some of its lopsided losses to non-playoff opponents, found a way to bounce back in the second game of back-to-backs, and shaken it shootout struggles, ‘playoff hockey’ would have continued to be synonymous with ‘Winnipeg’.

But now, for the first time since 2016-17, the Jets will be golfing in early May.

Winnipeg closes out its final road game of the season on Thursday evening in Carolina. Puck drop is set for 6:00 PM central time. The Jets then return to Canada Life Centre for games against Colorado, Philadelphia, Calgary and Seattle to wrap up the 2021-22 campaign.