Paul Maurice is dropping F-bombs, telling us to mind our business
There’s a perverse joy in seeing the honeymoon end.
As we’ve talked about before, the veil’s been lifted from the eyes of Winnipeg Jets fans, who have peeled off the “be happy you even have a team again” protecting this franchise and started, you know, expecting progress and success and maybe even the faint whiff of contention.
It’s the only thing that’ll eventually force changes in Winnipeg; changes that are overdue.
Although coach Paul Maurice takes a nihilistic approach to that idea.
“Change to what? At the end of the day, to what? Is it moving our kids out? I don’t think we need to get any younger,” he said.
Maurice’s team is 1-4-0. They’re 27th in the League in offense at 1.60 goals per game – losing Evander Kane’ll do that to a team – but 18th in defense, with Ondrej Pavelec sporting a .895 percent even-strength save percentage.
In three of those five games, they trailed after the first period and never rallied.
“We have a certain reaction to bad events. Changing that reaction is a challenge,” he said on Monday.
There’s only so much Maurice can do. The veteran players on this team don’t know winning, or have forgotten it in the case of former Blackhawks Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd. The rookies haven’t yet experienced it – every night, Maurice has to watch one or two of them “freelance” (his term) in an attempt to rally the team, but instead alienating the other four players in the ice who aren’t in sync.
“Almost every young team that you’ve seen has to deal with this,” he said.
You’d think that accountability in the dressing room would be the key, either from the coach or the leadership on this team.
“I understand at 1-4, we’re going to go looking for the people that caused it,” admitted Maurice.
But the paying customers aren’t going to be privy to it, as Maurice artfully told the media on Monday.
"It's not the players' job to tell YOU about it. I don't have to open this book up to you and tell you everything that goes on in the room.I can make you cry in the [F-ing] room. Listen, I understand you have to work with what you're given and I appreciate that. But the accountability in the room is fine. We deal with our problems directly.”
He then apologized for the profanity. Watch the exchange here, beginning at 8:47:
You almost wish Maurice could stand up there is proclaim none of this is his fault, that he’s a good card player dealt a bad hand, but like every good coach he believes this group can win.
(He also undoubtedly understands that management is content to let the young players incubate for a while with the worst case scenario being another lottery pick in a deep draft.)
Instead, one imagines he’ll get feistier as the losses pile up, trying his best to find silver linings as the fans grab their torches with platitudes like this: “I like some of the things they almost did."
Well, that's almost great.
