Jets, Cheveldayoff Need to Stay the Course

The NHL’s trade deadline is only 7 days away, and the speculation about trades that won’t happen has heated up. Most of them involve Rick Nash, of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who’s suddenly available since the Jackets seem to have reached the point of ineptitude where they’re going to have to blow the whole roster up and start over. Rumours have involved a lot of teams, some able to give up what they’d have to in order to get a player of Nash’s caliber and some with a half-empty cupboard who shouldn’t even think of making such a deal.

One such team who should forget about Rick Nash and anyone even remotely as good (and especially as expensive) as him are the Winnipeg Jets. The Jets have strengths on their roster, for certain, but depth is not one of them. They definitely need to forget about deals for anyone like Nash and simply make trades to, piece by piece, fill the holes the team has.

In short, they need to stay the course. Certainly the team requires more guys who can put the puck in the net. They can acquire a 20-30-goal scorer dealing from their position of strength, which is at defense. But, they don’t need to make a big enough splash to fill the headlines. Team GM, Kevin Cheveldayoff, should only make trades with 2 or 3 years down the road in mind. Not particularly next year and certainly not a playoff run this year. It doesn’t really matter if they become incrementally better Feb 27 if they have to give up a couple key players off their current roster. It does matter though if they’re better, and can still be better next year, without having given up too much.

The Jets need to make moves keeping in mind payroll, cap space and the various roster improvements they need to make to become a cup contender. Getting a Rick Nash wouldn’t make the team more competitive if they have to give up 2 top 4 defensemen and 2 number one draft choices in a deal to get him. All you’d have would be Nash playing on an otherwise AHL level roster.

Fans aren’t often patient. Everyone always wants their team to be a contender yesterday but hopefully the 15 years we were without an NHL team in Winnipeg, will encourage the fans to be generous with the time they allow Cheveldayoff to build a winning team. Becoming a winner won’t happen overnight and the fans have to be satisfied with even the smallest signs of improvement.