Preseason Takeaways: New-Look Jets Have Much to Prove

The Winnipeg Jets began their 2022-23 preseason with a dud of a game in Edmonton against a rather minor league-looking Oilers squad on Sunday night. Returning home for the first of three exhibition games at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday evening, the Jets dressed a star-studded lineup and scored five times, beating the visiting Ottawa Senators by two goals in front of a light 13,191 fans in downtown Winnipeg.

Despite the onslaught of second period tallies, Winnipeg’s new bench boss, Rick Bowness, was not overly thrilled by the performance of his troops – most notably his star players.

“Ah, I’ll never complain about a win, but listen, there’s a lot of work to be done here,” Bowness told reporters post-game. “I thought we started to skate better in the third… but no I’m not happy with it at all. For a lot of guys, that was their first game but that being said, we have to play a lot faster than that.”

Sure, his team put up five goals and held the Belleville Senators to just three, but shots against in the first and second periods favoured Ottawa, while turnovers and sloppy play certainly pointed in the direction of Bowness’ boys.

“Veterans or not, I think we just have to learn to play the right way, and we have to stop playing slow. I don’t like that one bit,” he said when asked what is expected on his veteran players. “So, the veterans have to lead the way. We’ve been talking about shorter shifts and keeping the thing going north, the veterans have to lead the way. The veterans can’t be the issue. We’ve got to fix the veterans and they’ve got to be leading the way showing the kids how to play the right way. So that’s going to be our job. We have a lot of work to do.”

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To be completely fair, all four forward lines and three defence pairs saw the ice for a similar chunk of time on Tuesday. Mark Scheifele (18:27) and Kyle Connor (17:17) were the only two forwards above 17 minutes, while 11:41 (Henri Nikkanen) was the least amount of time given amongst the offence. Nikkanen’s linemate Daniel Torgersson managed to capitalize twice in his 11:53 of icetime, scoring two goals and then hitting a post later in the game.

“You always want to play in the NHL,” Torgersson said. “When you get the opportunity you need to take it. I’m always doing my hardest work and I’ll just keep working.”

“Of course it’s always fun to score and make points, but in the end it’s the three (two) points to the team that matters.”

Sometimes, things can be lost in translation, but mistaking three points for a preseason win – to which no points are given out, but two points are assigned in the regular season – would likely come down to his other pastime of European football.

Torgersson, 20, is a 6-foot-3, 200-pound Swede originally drafted early in the second round by Winnipeg back in 2020. His coach has had just a small sample size for assessment, but so far, so good from Bones.

“He put two in the net and had a few good looks,” Bowness said. “He’s a big, strong, heavy guy. He’s strong on the puck. He put himself in the right positions to score. Give him credit for that.”

Torgersson had two goals in seven games for his bronze medal-winning Swedish club at the 2022 summer running of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship this past August. He called the World Juniors a “helpful” experience, which landed just prior to the Jets camp.

Suiting up in four games in the AHL with the Manitoba Moose last season, Torgersson scored two times and added an assist in an impressive late-season showing.

“I would say it’s good confidence,” he said of his time with Manitoba. “To come over here at the end of the season there, play a few pretty good games. Now I’m just going to keep going on that, take that feeling from last season and put it into this season.”

On a team desperately looking for offensive depth from its bottom-six forwards, Torgersson very well may be that spark that Bowness and his crew are missing. With the top-six all but rounded out, Adam Lowry, Blake Wheeler, Mason Appleton, Morgan Barron, Jansen Harkins, David Gustafsson, Sam Gagner and Dominic Toninato may need to watch their backs should this sort of performance continue over the next four exhibition games.

“With a new coach here and new systems, you need to learn the system, everything,” Torgersson said. “So far, I think pretty good, but everything can be better. So it’s just keep going.”

Funny moment in the scrum as Daniel Torgersson misinterprets a @friesensunmedia question on “what he does next to follow up his performance” and responds with, “maybe I’ll eat something.”

Pure English-Swedish translation gold.

— Carter Brooks (@CBrooksie84) September 28, 2022

And what can he do for an encore to one-up his recent performance? Simple, get his food and rest, according to the rosy-cheeked Swede.

Winnipeg’s preseason squad next faces the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Thursday evening. It is estimated that most veterans will once again be removed from the Jets’ lineup, making way for more assessment of youngsters by Bowness and his staff. The game can be viewed live on TSN at 6:00 PM central time.