“A Year to Forget” for Jets Forward Mark Scheifele

The biggest buzz around Jets-land following the team’s official conclusion to the 2021-22 season is that of the status of star forward Mark Scheifele.

Currently in year six of a team-friendly, eight-year deal signed back on July 8, 2016, the 29-year-old is scheduled to make $6.125 million in each of the next two seasons… in Winnipeg.

Yes, his contract is with the Jets, despite all that has swirled through the air over the past six-to-eight months.

Stemming back to Winnipeg’s second round sweep at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens last summer, Scheifele, the Jets, and fans of the team have seemingly been at odds.

Since his Game 1 check on Habs’ forward Jake Evans that cost him four games and likely the series for his team, Scheifele has been a different player for Winnipeg.

Empty thoughts in post-game media conferences, an apparent lack of defensive care on-ice, combined with some shocking year-end commentary following Winnipeg’s 4-3 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Sunday have Jets fans in a knot over the first selection ever made in Winnipeg Jets 2.0 history.

“It’s definitely a year I’ll try to forget a little bit,” Scheifele said when asked about the 2021-22 season. “It was a tough one, from a lot of things, COVID, injuries, coach leaving, a new coach coming in, all that stuff. Olympics, yeah, I’d forgotten about that already. It’s one of those years where it sucked, it was a crappy ending. But like I said before you can’t dwell on it too long, you have to reflect and think about the good and the bad and the ugly and come back better next year.”

Offensively, Scheifele produced as well as ever in 2021-22. Operating at a point-per-game pace or better since the 2016-17 season, the Kitchener, ON. product has found success at even strength and on the team’s top power play unit. However, it’s his defensive game that has many questioning his role going forward.

“That’s hockey. You gotta deal with some of that stuff,” he said. “That adversity, those tough times, have to make you stronger. If you get negative about it, if you dwell on it to long, it’s only going to weigh you down. So, you have to reflect, you have to think about the good things, the bad things and the things you want to fix and go into the summer and come back a better person, a better player, next year. That has to be the focus.”

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But where will Scheifele be playing next season? According to the four-time 70-point scorer, it’s up in the air.

“Obviously I love it here, he stated. “It’s been the only place I know. I obviously think there’s a lot of big questions to be asked this off-season about where the team’s going and and what’s all going to happen and that’ll happen tomorrow. I’d love to be in Winnipeg, but I also have to see where this is all going and what direction this team is going in and I guess we’ll see this summer.”

Scheifele wasn’t done there.

“I just have to know, I just have to understand where this team is going,” he added. “I’m in the prime of my career. I still have so much to improve on too and I like where my game is at. I like the physical nature that my body is at. I’m only improving, I’m only getting better and I’m only going to be a better player next year than I was this year. I just have to know where this team is going and what the direction is and what the changes are going to be, if any. I have to think about my career and what’s going to be best for me. Those are going to be…talks with my agents and everyone in my family and stuff like that and figure out what I really want. So, it will be a tough talk tomorrow.”

The comments from Scheifele led to an online revolt against one of the team’s best contributors since relocation. But save it to Winnipeg to bash on one of just two players to produce at over a point-per-game rate on the season.

Yes, the defence has been, well, atrocious, but without Scheifele’s offence, the team would be far worse off.

Scheifele’s -17 was a team-worst this season, and his year-to-year plus/minus totals have dropped drastically since signing his new contract. But the now veteran forward likely anticipated this season as one which he wouldn’t have to be relied on as heavily defensively, considering the team’s offseason acquisitions on the blueline.

“I think this team needs to understand that they have to play a certain way,” the team’s general manager Kevin Cheveledayoff said at his year-end availability. “It’s not just this team, I think every team, you need talent to win in this league and you need that talent to be elite, whether it’s from the net, on defence, at forward, it has to be elite. But you need also that talent and those group of guys to understand that you’ve got to play a certain way and sometimes it’s not fun and some nights it’s more fun than others. But more often than not you’re going to be on the successful side. We do need to find a way to play better defensively, whether it’s systemic or a mindset.”

With Nate Schmidt and Brenden Dillon joining the crew, the pressure to defend was likely loosened from the beginning. Attention to detail on offence clearly took precedent, as was demonstrated by the strong regular season numbers put up by forwards Kyle Connor, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Nikolaj Ehlers, and even Scheifele.

But clearly, scoring goals and working the offence is not enough in the eyes of Winnipeg Jets fans.

Scheifele, who owns a 10-team modified no-trade list, would only be eligible for a trade should Cheveldayoff’s negotiating partner not be on Scheifele’s list of teams he wouldn’t be interested in playing for. But with the way things are currently going in Winnipeg, the long-time Jet very well may waive that movement clause just to get out of town.

“He is a talented player, he is in the prime of his career, he is all those things that he said he is,” Cheveldayoff said of Scheifele. “He’s a Winnipeg Jet and he wants to win. As an organization, we’re going to have to take a little bit of a re-assessment here to see where some things are at, but our goal is to win the Stanley Cup. We’ve been a cap team, we’ve been committed to that, we’ve signed guys long-term… That vision hasn’t changed, from a standpoint of wanting to win a Stanley Cup. We’re just going to have to come at it and look at it from a bit of a different perspective after a setback year like this.”

Mark Scheifele has not asked for a trade.

— Carter Brooks (@CBrooksie84) May 2, 2022

Only able to suit up in 67 games for Winnipeg this season due to injury, Scheifele did put up 29 goals and 70 points on the year. His last game came on April 10, when he was hurt on a check to his shoulder that forced him out of the lineup through the remainder of the regular season.

Should his team have been in a playoff position, Scheifele said that he would have been ready to jump back into the lineup.

“I would have been back for playoffs, for sure. I feel pretty good, I’m almost pretty close to 100 per cent,” he said. “My focus was just to get healthy. I tried not to think about all the other stuff, my focus was getting the right treatment and go see my team and get healthy as quick as possible and make sure I’m doing the right things and make sure it’s healing properly, and I did that.”

Although his GM did state that Scheifele has not asked for a trade, he also admitted that he hasn’t held his year-end locker cleanout with the alternate captain. This means that Scheifele very well still could make the formal request, with news on that still to come.

Until then, all that Jets fans can do is sit tight and enjoy the playoffs on television.