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Paul Maurice on the Upcoming Season

First thing he did: Got a cup of coffee…wasn’t his first.

Expectations: Goal for this year and every year is to start the process of this organization becoming a contending team…a lot of barriers we want to improve…

Level of talent: Still in discovery part and it’s a function of our age…experienced with those young years…finding out who we are…evaluating where players are at…level of potential…not where we need to be…does not want to underestimate group…push as hard as we can (paraphrase)

Offseason work: Watched games from Noel era (not last 5 or 6) (paraphrase) and spent quite a bit of time on system changes.

Kane as a leader: The players that play the most minutes; lead…everybody is at the point where they have to lead…we need to get quite a bit better to be a contending team.

Expectation in Winnipeg: …Whoever lives in Winnipeg finds a way to love it here…weather was wonderful…it’s the people here; the people you meet. People love the team and want to watch a good team (paraphrase)….will work the butts off in training camp to get there…going to look like they are competing. (paraphrase) We’re going to get better.

Youth: Would not add youth to the lineup if there is a short-term step back…will play them if they will help the team. Putting players in a place to succeed (paraphrase). If he’s not capable of doing the job, he’s not going to play here.

Unrealized potential: Possibly…fight good…compete hard…gotta get them all flying in the same direction. Mark Stuart is a perfect example…structured defensive zone he is great because he has good gaps, but when that fails he fails because he is tentative. (Paraphrase)

Understanding Kane: Winnipeg is an even more special place, we’re talking about somebody here people…Wheeler tweet was retro; that’s funny. Both Kane and Wheeler are in great shape; passed the shirt off test. (paraphrase)

MP: Interesting dynamic…quite quick…some skill goes into your lineup that’s going to compete…not looking for that line to hold water, wants them to score goals. Same rules as Little line…work him into the PP units on the half wall.

Improvement: Become a better defensive hockey team…whatever your advanced stats tell you…defensively is most important.

Pavelec evaluate him: Unfair to evaluate Pavs until d is sorted out (crap, crap crap.) Need Ondrej to be better…need to play a game in front of him that he understands…needs to do the work to be a number one, be a great number one.

PP: Personal and breakouts will change. (paraphrase) Not really far up on the rankings critical to success.

Systems:…a matter of repetition…3 major defensive systems that they will run…one is brand new.

Exhibition games: Everyone will be played in an adverse situation…give them a chance to show what they can do tired…training camp is not going to be punitive…most fit man on the ice is going to look like the most tired guy.

Mentions (Evander) Kane with (Mark) Scheifele…thinking about (Blake) Wheeler with those two.

(Dustin) Byfuglien starts and finishes training camp as a forward.

Note: Maurice did mention advanced stats/analytics a few times, but he did not expand on which ones he meant. Too bad because it would be interesting to find out what the Jets track.

And the videos, so you can listen for yourself…and admire the new, pretty podium.




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