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Winnipeg Jets rush to extend Kevin Cheveldayoff’s contract for some reason

What did Chevy do today? Well, much to my chagrin, Kevin Cheveldayoff signed a two-year contract extension with the Winnipeg Jets for some reason, as Mark Chipman and TNSE have chosen to give their head honcho even more security in his job. But the question I have is why? What was the rush? Chevy still had another three years left on his current deal, and this extension means that he’ll have another five seasons to turn around the Atlanta Thrashers Jets, even if his draft picks don’t turn out. If they all go bust, he’s still going to have term on his deal. That makes little sense to me.

I'm obviously not the leader of the Chevy fan-club, and I'm immune to the kool-aid that TNSE has apparently hooked up into our tap water (hey, maybe that's why our water is brown!), but even if I was this deal would still look strange. There are no reasons that I can think of that would make inking this deal a time-sensitive thing. Were they actually waiting until they won a preseason game before announcing it?

I mean, I could go on and on about the things that Chevy has done that I’ve not liked. I could point out the Mark Scheifele pick which left Sean Couturier, Dougie Hamilton and Jonas Brodin on the board (in case you’d forgotten). I could bring up Lukas Sutter, the 2nd round bust pick that was taken next in that draft. I could talk about raiding the waiver-wire for a bunch of scrubs while leaving actually talented guys like Jussi Jokinen on there. I could talk about hanging on to a number of UFA’s and letting them walk for nothing. I could talk about the Ondrej Pavelec deal. Or re-upping all of the Atlanta Thrashers core to long-term deals despite never winning together.

But I won't. Or at least, I won't harp on them today…

Instead, I'll go with something that even the most Pro-Chevy person could agree with. For better or worse, the Winnipeg Jets have clearly decided to patiently build through the draft and let Chevy and his staff develop their players. As such, he has hitched his wagon to the draft picks that he's made over the past three drafts, but only ONE (!!!) has played a single NHL game! Was TNSE really not willing to wait until Chevy's picks combined to score at least two goals in the show before re-upping the big guy? While it is an extremely unlikely occurrence, what if none of of his picks turn out? What if Scheifele and Trouba, the main jewels upon Chevy's crown, don't turn into the major impact players that the Jets not only want but badly need? Oy vey.

Don’t get me wrong, Chevy’s draft record is still being written and it will take years to know how he’s done to this point. I’m also still hopeful that Scheifele, Jacob Trouba, Joshua Morrissey, Adam Lowry, Nicolas Petan and the rest all pan out and develop into major players for the Jets. But if they don’t? Well, it doesn’t matter now, as Chevy will be here until the end of the 2017-18 season regardless, and the Jets will be in huge trouble if these guys go bust. I’m not quite sure how to react to this extension today, but it sure seems like the cart was put in front of the horse. I just don’t understand the rush to put pen to paper in this instance, as waiting another year to see if Chevy’s guys pan out doesn’t seem like that unrealistic of an option.

Oh well. There is a bright side to all of this.  #whatdidchevydotoday will have another five years to entertain you!

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