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Jets can’t shake their Thrasher ways, apparently

noel jets

We wrote last week about how the Winnipeg Jets weren’t ready to blow up their roster...yet.

Now one writer is suggesting something entirely different: De-Atlantize it.

Gary Lawless of the Winnipeg Free Press suggested this in today’s column, “Death to the Thrashers and their low standards”. In it, he writes that Winnipeg management and players “have seen enough of the Thrashers’ way of doing things and are now intent on eliminating any remaining DNA.”

This would probably explain Noel’s cryptic comments from last week. “This is not what we’re going to be about,” “It’s not going to get shaped this way,” “This is not what I want” -- soundbites that raised plenty of eyebrows across the league. They were the words of a man not just looking to ship out bodies. They were the words of a man that wanted a culture change, and probably wanted it 17 games ago.

To that end, the Jets called up Jason Jaffray from the St. John’s IceCaps on Sunday. A career minor-leaguer that’s logged time in the hockey hotbeds of Roanoke, Norfolk, Wheeling, Wilkes-Barrie/Scranton and Cleveland, Jaffray’s had very few cups of NHL coffee.

The idea behind the move is clear.

“There’s a reason old-timers will tell you every player should spend some time on the farm and it’s because it teaches them to never take their spot in the NHL for granted,” Lawless writes. “Jaffray has had to claw for the 36 games he’s spent in the NHL over a 10-year career that saw him start in the ECHL. Jaffray won’t take a shift, a practice or workout off. He can’t if he wants to stick around and put NHL dollars in the bank.”

The message: “See how hard this guy’s working to be here? That’s how hard you should be working.”

Who it’s directed at? Probably everyone, though some Jets more than others: Dustin Byfuglien (team-worst minus-7), Blake Wheeler (zero goals), Bryan Little (five points in 17 games) and Johnny Oduya (the human turnover machine) are safe guesses.