Pierre-Luc Dubois has shown himself capable of taking over games this season, imposing his will in all three zones. Mark Scheifele is scoring at most of a point-per-game pace and playing a more committed defensive game while Blake Wheeler outperforms expectations and Connor Hellebuyck performs exactly to his Vezina quality expectations of himself.
And it’s possible that, come the summer of 2024, none of those four players are Jets.
Dubois was the topic of several mailbag questions this month — as should be expected, given he and the Jets need to make a decision sooner than the others do. In a way, decision day for Dubois is this summer: all he has to do to fast-track UFA status is sign his qualifying offer or file for arbitration and wait for the arbitrator’s award.
Dubois could also be the pivot point on which all other things turn. One mailbag question asks about Winnipeg adding Bo Horvat; the short answer is “maybe” but the long answer is a chain of “if Dubois does thisthen Winnipeg can do that.“
Such is his importance not only as a physically dominant, point-per-game center but a prime-aged piece of a Jets team that needs to plan for this year’s playoff run, the rest of Hellebuyck, Wheeler and Scheifele’s current contracts, and their post-2024 future.
Today we dig into these questions, plus thoughts on Rick Bowness and the concept of a coaching shelf life, the trade deadline and what the future holds for star junior-aged prospects like Brad Lambert and Chaz Lucius.
Tomorrow we’ll focus on the defense. Thank you as always — I did my very best to answer them.
Note: Submitted questions may be edited for clarity and style.
It’s now very clear that Chevy hung on to Maurice for too long — and didn’t even fire him in the end! Have there been any indications that Chevy and possibly Mark Chipman have learned a lesson about the dark side of loyalty or did they chalk it up to bad luck with no further reflection? — Kent T.
This was a popular question and I understand that. It’s also difficult to answer. Mark Chipman told me he doesn’t believe in a “shelf life” for coaches shortly before Maurice stepped down. He really, really believed in Maurice as a person and it is my belief that conversations with Chipman and Kevin Cheveldayoff convinced Maurice to take another swing at the Jets roster during the 2021 offseason.
I lead with all of that to say I don’t think you’re out to lunch with the premise of your question.
But I haven’t had the opportunity to talk to Chipman or Cheveldayoff about any changes of heart with respect to how things were handled. My guess is that Rick Bowness was hired because they believed he was the best person for the job (after Barry Trotz) as opposed to a way of ensuring no one would replicate Maurice’s long-term tenure. At the same time, as I first reported: the Jets had Scott Arniel in place as associate coach long before Trotz’s final decision.
Perhaps Arniel was a preemptive, proactive succession plan, given that he’s been a head coach in the NHL before as well as head coach of the Manitoba Moose.
Or maybe he’s just someone True North believed in to do the job.
I’m not trying to hedge so much as point out the important decisions Winnipeg has made on this front and to try to illustrate that the situation it faces in the years ahead won’t resemble what happened with Maurice. I don’t think it can, given that Bowness turns 68 this month. He’s under contract for one more season, then Winnipeg has a club option on a third year. Beyond that, it’s tough to tell.
With a player like Bo Horvat available, how long do you wait to see if Dubois will stay or not. As a fan, I am honestly tired of waiting. If Horvat would commit to Winnipeg would you acquire him and trade Dubois? — Richard M.
Is it possible a winning record and new leadership (coaching and captains) are making PLD reconsider wanting to leave? Even if he doesn’t want to sign for eight years, is it possible he signs a Laine-like contract in the 4-5 year range once he hits UFA status? — Dominic C.
There are so many maybes on the Jets horizon that I almost need to pull out a whiteboard here to answer your question with a flow chart or two.
The bottom line is that we don’t know what the future holds for Dubois. All he needs to do to become a free agent in the summer of 2024 is file for arbitration (or sign his qualifying offer) this summer. If he wants out, it’s as simple as that.
If he wants to stay (or is willing to entertain the idea of staying) I don’t think Winnipeg has a lot to gain or lose by waiting until the offseason to sign him. I don’t think it’s possible for the 24-year-old Dubois to make himself more expensive: He’s already on pace for a 94-point season while playing a strong enough two-way game to give the Jets their second veritable No. 1 center. What could he possibly do down the stretch or in the playoffs that pays him better than that?
If Dubois doesn’t want to stay, then perhaps your idea of trading him now makes sense — on paper. Presumably, teams would pay more now for two playoff runs with Dubois down the middle than they would this summer, with just one season left between Dubois and UFA status. If Winnipeg could swing a deal for your example player — Horvat — and get a PLD-sized haul back for Dubois, I’d understand the temptation.
In practice, I struggle to find a list of playoff-bound teams who can fit Dubois’ $6 million cap hit (I think the list projects to be: Minnesota and Los Angeles.) Given that Horvat comes with a $5.5 million cap hit, I Suppose you could think up a trade built around the two of them, with Vancouver needing to add based on age and Horvat’s pending UFA status. If you think that’s a better situation than Winnipeg could conjure up in a Dubois trade this summer, then perhaps Horvat is yours. He’s a strong faceoff man, a good goal scorer and a productive point-getter, if not as physically dominant or as effective defensively — from a metrics perspective — as Dubois is.
What if Winnipeg could acquire Horvat’s $5.5 million salary without trading Dubois, though? The Jets are projected to be able to add roughly $7 million worth of contracts on deadline day. Horvat’s goal scoring and faceoff acumen would be more than welcome in a Jets playoff run, I am sure, and then Winnipeg would have three centers who desperately need contract extensions instead of two.
Perhaps you’ve found the insurance the Jets need — and a way to make them better here and now, too. For what it’s worth, Pierre LeBrun seems to like Horvat to Colorado.
As for the question of whether or not Dubois is willing to sign an extension, I wrote a little bit about that Friday. My best guess is that all of the major pillars are important to him: quality of team, size of payday, quality of personal life, etc. Thinking out loud, I think he’s probably gone from having one of those things at the end of last season — Winnipeg was likely willing to pay him quite well — to at least two. I don’t think that’s insignificant, even if he has personal draws to other places — Montreal included.
Given Brad Lambert and Chaz Lucius’s difficulties in scoring for the Moose, any chance they go to junior to be given a chance to dominate offensively? — Jeffrey M.
You were on to something, Jeffrey. You asked this question before Winnipeg assigned Lambert to Seattle and Lambert to Portland of the WHL. Let’s think out loud about each first-round player.
The narrative on Lambert seems to flip-flop every few months. At first, he was a consensus top-five or top-10 draft pick. Few people had seen a player as young as Lambert skate as well as he did as he laid waste to various levels of Finnish junior competition. He played his first Liiga games in 2019-20 — the season he turned 16 — and scored two points in four games. I’ll spare you the rest of his rise but the belief was that a player with his hands and speed could be a truly impactful offensive player in the pro ranks.
But then he wasn’t. Not in Liiga at 17 or 18. Not in Manitoba as an 18- or 19-year-old. As it turns out, being a player that young — especially an offense-first player — makes it hard for a teenager to cement himself in a men’s professional league.
And that’s OK.
Recall that current top-six forward Cole Perfetti joined a slightly diluted AHL after turning 19 and took a while to find his game. His season-end stat line reads 26 points in 32 games — as opposed to Lambert’s three points in 14 games — but his start was similar: seven points in his first 14 games. Step by step, Perfetti’s impact grew from power play and overtime excellence to five-on-five and his all-around game.
That was in a league that lost some of its top-end talent to NHL taxi squads in the pandemic shortened 2020-21 season. Lambert was a couple of months younger at the start of this AHL season than Perfetti was at the time in a higher-quality league.
Lucius’ story is similar. He’s roughly six months older than Lambert and, instead of needing to overcome a hype train that’s ridden like a roller coaster, for Lucius it’s more about speed bumps: an injury situation at the University of Minnesota last season and a “slow” start to this. year with five points in 12 games for Manitoba.
Once again, those numbers are completely respectable (and may indicate that Lucius is a touch further along in his pro-readiness than Lambert is).
Now Lambert joins a stacked Thunderbirds team in Seattle that ranks second in the CHL — and who also recently added productive Coyotes forward Dylan Guenther just in case Arizona sends him down to the WHL when the season is over. He’ll be surrounded by star power on a team set to go deep. Just as important: he’ll be put in situations where his speed consistently creates advantages for him and he’ll have plenty of opportunity to work on turning those moments into offense for himself (and for his teammates, too). The book on Lambert is that he can get tunnel vision sometimes and a large number of reps alongside talented scorers on a deep team should help him continue to grow.
Portland is ranked seventh in the CHL and should be a similarly strong landing spot for Lucius, who was highly productive for Team USA with five goals and two assists in seven World Junior Championship games. Three of those goals came in the USA’s bronze medal-winning game.
What does all of this mean? Both players get to play for great teams at a level more suited to their current abilities. I suspect Lucius is more likely to have an instant impact based on what we’ve seen so far, while Lambert may run a bit hot and cold as he learns to make the most of his physical gifts.
(Photo of Bo Horvat and Neal Pionk: Bob Frid / USA Today)
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