Game On Magazine 2017 Game On Magazine - Regular Season Edition | Page 50

WHEELER’S MOVE
TO CENTRE A LESSON
FOR YOUNG PLAYERS
BY RYAN DI T TRICK
When the Winnipeg Jets lost top-line centre Mark
Scheifele to a long-term injury late in the calendar year,
many were left asking “what now?”
The answer – in the short term, at least – was right
there in front of them, and has so far proven to be a
good lesson for young players everywhere looking to
make more of an impact.
Thirty-one-year-old Blake Wheeler has always been
known as a versatile, everything-for-the-team-type
player, but his history of having played all three
forward positions in his prime development years has
been a game-changer in what could have been a fight
for survival.
Wheeler, who broke into the league as a natural centre
out of the University of Minnesota more than a decade
ago, took over in the middle and was immediately thrust
back into the spotlight as a defensive tactician while
the Jets push for their first-ever Central Division title.
On his wings, rookie sensation Kyle Connor and the stud
sophomore, a 2017 Calder finalist, Patrik Laine, whose
combined 135 games of NHL experience joined the
captain’s 700-plus on one of the league’s most unlikely
No. 1 forward units.
The trio was not only expected to maintain, but lead the
charge offensively and contribute at both ends of the
ice to help fill the void left by their talented, 80-plus
point pivot.
That first forward has to position himself down low to
either win a puck battle, retrieve the puck and make a
play to the middle where the recipient of a pass can find
a lane and gather speed through the neutral zone.
“If it’s a winger, the centre has to adjust, read, pull back
and position himself differently,” Todd Woodcroft, a
“If I can just be positive with him, try to build them up, second-year assistant coach with the club, explained
try to make them feel good, we can have some success. following practice in early January. “That’s the single
We went out and had a good first game and gained a hardest thing to understand for a winger moving to the
little confidence with each other, and that was huge,” middle – when to recognize when to go and when to let
their wingers go. … We’re reading what the other team
Wheeler said.
is giving us and we’re seeing what pressure they’re
There was little, if any, doubt they could dominate putting down. If either (Laine) or (Connor) is the first
offensively if they could get the puck in the right spots one to that battle, then Blake has to get himself into
in the other teams’ end, but the biggest adjustment position to accept a pass either along the wall or in the
and learning curve came 200 feet south, where the middle of the ice. It’s not always go, go, go.”
Jets have committed themselves more than ever to a
Even so, and because of his unique and altogether
dependable defensive structure.
world-class skill-set, Wheeler is often the first one
Teams at the pro level employ a variety of strategies to back, anyway. His speed, physicality and sheer will
not only contain top-end talent in their own end, but to to win puck battles makes him the perfect candidate,
quickly and effectively break the puck out and create meaning his wingers are usually the ones in charge of
accepting that first pass and making a play.
their own offence in transition.
Lofty, indeed.
For the Jets, the key to the breakout is the first forward
back, or “F1.”
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“The ability to take that puck off the wall and pop it to
the middle, especially when you have someone down on
top of you, that’s a real hard skill,” Woodcroft said