Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff was asked nearly 30 direct questions on Sunday.
As for direct answers, he gave one: Head coach Rick Bowness will be back.
Sitting through this 42-minute session was as painful as any Sunday morning church service I can remember as a kid. When I got home, instead of counting my blessings I had some 6,000 words to go through, none of them parable-worthy.
Some of Cheveldayoff’s evasiveness makes sense. For instance, it’s too soon to know where someone like Connor Hellebuyck stands on potentially signing a contract extension.
For the most part, though, the Jets front-office eminence remains a champion of the bafflegab, even as his team seems as far away as ever from the NHL championship it’s striving for.
A plan, though? A clear direction for fans to get behind? A promise or even some words of encouragement?
As missing as his team was in Game 5 in Vegas.
Cheveldayoff didn’t say he’s going to rebuild the Jets, but he didn’t rule it out, either.
Asked which of the tough decisions on his desk will take priority — the future of his goalie, his top two centres or his highest-paid player — he fudged.
Presented with the conflict between Bowness and several veteran players, who didn’t like the way their coach called them onto the carpet after they mailed it in in Vegas, he fidgeted.
As a seller of hope, he failed.
Most confounding, though, and probably most troubling to his fan base (if I have even a pinky finger on the pulse of it) is Cheveldayoff’s sense, and by extension the sense of the entire organization, that they’re “in a good place.”
Including 2018, his team has only missed the playoffs once, he claimed, conveniently lumping a pandemic play-in series against Calgary as part of the Stanley Cup chase.
“We developed that core,” he said. “We drafted it. We developed it. We signed it. We kept it. And five of six years we got an opportunity to play for the Cup.”
Never mind the one series victory since 2018.
Never mind the complete cave-in and dysfunctional dressing room last season.
Never mind the second-half plummet from the top of the West this year, the lack of effort from some top players during the slide or the meek playoff exit, where, as his coach pointed out, the battle of each team’s best “wasn’t even close.”
“I don’t really read all the articles, but I’m not sure who predicted we were making the playoffs this year,” Cheveldayoff said. “There’s going to be one team that’s going to be satisfied with their season this year. There’s 16 teams that would have given anything to be in that same situation as us.”
Not quite true.
There are teams in various stages of building their rosters who will be happy with how far they get. Like the Jets reaching the conference final in 2018.
And there are those who are rebuilding and would rather be in the sweepstakes for the No. 1 draft pick today than — where the Jets are.
The mushy middle, some call it.
“We’re not sitting here waving any banners or anything like that,” Cheveldayoff said. “But there’s a lot of good people in that room that pushed this organization to a good place.”
“Last year, I think we started at 9 a.m. and we finished at 7 p.m.,” he said. “Yesterday we were done at 3 p.m.”
At least they saved on one player meal this year.
With his salad of words, Cheveldayoff will not be mistaken for the team salesman.
Actions, not words, are his stock in trade.
It seems the Jets stock is falling.
Even if nobody in the front office seems to realize it.
