The first 3 steps to a successful offseason after Jets' playoff disappointment

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WINNIPEG — Josh Morrissey said he felt terrible. From his emotional state, moments after Game 5 had ended, he said the Winnipeg Jets hadn't been good enough. That the Jets needed to do more than take responsibility for what happened in the first round against Colorado. They need to do something about it. Stop themselves from falling short again.

"It feels like a missed opportunity," Morrissey said, seething from the Game 5 loss. "The only way that there is any good from this is that we learn from it and we actually look at how we can improve as individuals and as a group."

It might not feel like it now — all playoff losses taste bitter — but this is a striking push forward in the Jets' narrative about themselves. Last year at this time, the talk was of pushback, a lack thereof, and whether or not Rick Bowness should have called out his players. The Jets took an enormous step this season, showing up — in some ways, for the first time — with their season on the line. The moment called for more and they delivered.

And Morrissey was right to say it wasn't enough.

"They brought that Stanley Cup-winning class to this series, and we didn't return it for three or four of those games," he said. "We have levels that we need to find this offseason. I hope it stings for all of us into the summer and we use it as motivation."

If you ask me it's about time Winnipeg's leadership group talked like this. It's one thing to blame outside factors, injuries, bad luck or bounces. Another to credit the opposition, giving it the respect it earned through its dominant win.

It's another for leaders to say, with emphasis and authority, that they weren't good enough. That the team wasn't good enough.

That, despite everything the Jets accomplished during a glittering regular season, the level they're at and the one they need to get to are worlds away. As an organization, the Jets have shied away from "I'm the problem. It's me."

As someone who believes he can decipher between platitudes and earnest calls to action, Morrissey's words were a refreshing approach to a devastating moment.

So which lessons do the Jets take away from their devastation? Which improvements stand between Winnipeg, regular season darlings, and the version which can do to other teams what Colorado did to it?

All of this starts with Winnipeg's critical offseason. This one isn't nearly as clear-cut as "Solve the PL Dubois situation, move on from Blake Wheeler, sign Connor Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele if you can." The Jets handled that problem well.

This summer's priorities are more difficult to pin down. A good team — a really good team, at times — just embarrassed itself in Round 1. It hasn't won anything substantial with its core group.

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Winnipeg's top offseason priority in a long list of them is to determine which elements of its success it can take forward.

Which elements can become good enough to compete for the Stanley Cup, knowing that none of them were good enough during these playoffs, and which should be thrown away?

We'll dig deeper into each of these in the coming weeks but, for now: Here are the Jets' first three steps for a successful offseason.

1. The inevitable assessment

This is the top item, it's Kevin Cheveldayoff's specialty, and it's usually one of the most boring things to talk about.

Consider the stakes this time, though. Winnipeg has just been authoritatively schooled in the business of playoff hockey. Colorado's secondary scorers scored more, played faster, won more battles and otherwise pushed the Jets out of the series.

It's easy for fans and media, myself included, to look at every player who made a mistake in a lost-looking five-game cause and declare them unfit for playoff success, but Cheveldayoff has to be wiser than that. He can't turn Nikolaj Ehlers into Mikko Rantanen, Kyle Connor into Valeri Nichushkin, or Scheifele into Nathan MacKinnon. He can only push his roster (and coaching staff) forward from the place it stands now, determining which players are organizational pillars.

Losing organizations often get this moment wrong, moving on from good players for not being great. Winning ones help them get there — and, if they can't, then they find the most resource-savvy way to move on. Winnipeg needs to assess which members of its team can deliver plus-value, in the playoffs, at the pace and intensity we just saw, relative to their position on the club. Morrissey? Check. Hellebuyck? Check.

And that leads us to No. 2.

2. Declare an identity and vision

There is simplicity in saying Winnipeg needs to get bigger to compete with teams like the Avalanche. The Jets rely on smaller skill at the top of its lineup, with top players like Scheifele, Connor, Ehlers and Morrissey. But the Jets didn't give up a lot of size to Colorado. They gave up quality and speed.

Colorado's top point producers, in order — all of whom outproduced Scheifele, who led the Jets — were Cale Makar, Rantanen, MacKinnon, Artturi Lehkonen and Nichushkin. Three of those players are listed at 6-foot or shorter and 200 pounds or less but they dominated Winnipeg all the same. "Getting bigger" is an oversimplified catch-all and so is the frequently declared "get more veterans." Winnipeg's roster demographics averaged one year older and five pounds heavier than the Avalanche did.

Colorado won by being better than Winnipeg and by playing such a committed and aggressive forecheck that the Jets couldn't get out of their own zone. It's not the only way to win. Teams like Vegas and Dallas backpressure so effectively and collapse to the middle of their ice so patiently — no matter what chaos ensues — that they become deadly on the counterattack.

Colorado's speed made the Avalanche feel inevitable in Round 1. Other teams do it with heaviness, or elite top-end talent, or defence corps that can attack and defend with the elites. The feeling is the same: St. Louis found it in 2019, Vegas last year and Colorado now. The commitment to the game plan was automatic.

Winnipeg needs to know its playoff-winning identity — that strength it can count on with Avalanche-like consistency — and make managerial and coaching decisions that serve that identity. It seems possible but unlikely that the Jets can double down on the same roster and game plan and simply execute so much better that they meet the standard Colorado showed them in Round 1.

So what are their strengths? What kind of game do they believe they can win against anybody on their day?

It's tough to see anyone in the Jets' top six winning as many puck battles as Nichushkin or Lehkonen did. Winnipeg appears to need more offence from its defensively savvy players and more defence from its offensively gifted players throughout the top nine. It was also clear that the second line gave up too much speed to the Avalanche to be effective. "Rely on Hellebuyck to clean everything up despite giving up more scoring chances per minute than the league's worst regular season teams" has not proven effective, either.

This team may need a new identity, whether it comes from players' personal improvements, fresh coaching or a stylistic change in personnel. Cheveldayoff needs to understand which is which and to what extent.

3. Decide Bowness' future

Rick Bowness and his wife Judy were planning to retire when Winnipeg called in the summer of 2022. Bowness, then 67, missed that first call while golfing in Scottsdale, Ariz. When he and the Jets got to talking, it took him a moment to realize Winnipeg was exploring the idea of hiring him — he thought he was offering his viewpoints as something of a consultant.

Since then, Bowness has delivered much of what was asked of him. Winnipeg's defensive structure improved in his first season and again in his second one. Its leadership group was changed over, with Bowness removing Wheeler's captaincy in 2022 and then naming Adam Lowry captain heading into this season. Multiple Jets sources have shared a sense of feeling freer, like their contributions to team discussions have been more valued since Bowness took over than in the era that preceded him. Cheveldayoff helped with transformative roster moves; Bowness led a 39-win team to 46 and then 52 wins.

He's also left a lot on the table. A midseason fixation on playing Connor, Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi together defied the number of goals they gave up, their poor transition defence and atrocious underlying numbers. Cole Perfetti scored 19 points in his first 23 games but was demoted in high-leverage moments. These types of mistakes were most apparent in Game 4, with the Axel Jonsson-Fjallby brought into the lineup and then onto the second line — but not onto the penalty kill as Bowness intended — with Winnipeg desperate for offence. Cheveldayoff acquired a veteran right-handed defenceman whom Winnipeg opted not to use until Game 5, opting for an all-lefty third pair of Logan Stanley and Dylan Samberg instead. The results were predictable, with zone exits being tough to come by.

Bowness' tenure has elevated the Jets. The culture has improved. The locker room is a fun, engaging place to be, and the team's defensive structure helped Hellebuyck to the Jennings Trophy. If Cheveldayoff exercises the club option on Bowness' deal heading into next season, he might need to be more hands-on with roster decisions — a boundary he has thoroughly respected during his time as GM.

Winnipeg's future depends on a pipeline of young talent, whether it's Perfetti believing he's valued, Rutger McGroarty seeing an NHL path in front of him or Brad Lambert and Nikita Chibrikov consolidating their end-of-season NHL debuts by winning jobs at camp. Good player development is a conduit to cap efficiency and gives the Jets impact players under team control, with ties to the city. Cheveldayoff's hands are sometimes tied via no-trade clauses or preconceived notions of Winnipeg. He can't afford for the Jets' player development path to become a drag on player retention.

What comes next?

Bowness is a class act and one of the most respected people working in the NHL. Any decisions the Jets make will be in consultation with the veteran coach. Winnipeg will need to decide if it's content with Bowness' pros outweighing his cons or if Bowness' legacy will be that he was the coach who set things up for future success. He's accomplished a lot, even while missing time to attend to his and his wife's health at different times during his tenure.

(Photo of Rick Bowness and Cale Makar: Jonathan Kozub / NHLI via Getty Images)