Jets' Mark Scheifele belongs on Team Canada at 4 Nations Face-Off

WINNIPEG — A hat trick from Mark Scheifele couldn’t have been more fitting. 

On the heels of a dreadful two-game road trip in Florida — where they were outscored a combined 10-1 by the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers — the Winnipeg Jets needed their best from their best in Tuesday’s rematch with the Panthers. After being shut out 5-0 by the defending Cup champions on Saturday, naysayers had six periods worth of evidence to explain away how title contenders are Winnipeg’s kryptonite. That pessimism would’ve only amplified with another loss to the Panthers.

They needed their stars to be drivers. 

Scheifele was just that. And then some.

In front of a sellout crowd on a night where the 20th anniversary of Canada Life Centre was celebrated, the face of the franchise scored three goals and put together his most impactful performance of the season en route to the Jets’ 6-3 win over Florida. Scheifele recorded five scoring chances, made a handful of stealth defensive plays and was the driving force behind Winnipeg’s top line outchancing the opposition 12-4 during five-on-five play. 

“He wants to push that envelope every night offensively against the other team’s best players,” coach Scott Arniel said after the game. 

That’s always been obvious to those that have followed Scheifele closely. And for those unaware, that’ll likely change after the 4 Nations Face-Off rosters are announced. At this rate, it’d be downright shocking if Scheifele wasn’t part of Team Canada in February.

Scheifele, who has 12 goals and 24 points in 19 games, ranks fourth in goals per game (0.63) and is tied for sixth in points per game (1.26) among Canadian forwards.

The native of Kitchener, Ont. has an elite offensive tool-kit and it’s underappreciated league-wide. While Scheifele has long been lauded for his scoring — deservedly so, considering he scored 42 goals in 2021-22 and twice has scored 30-plus goals — he’s also a world-class passer. Dating back to the 2019-20 season, Scheifele ranks in the 94th percentile league wide in five-on-five primary assists per game (0.19), according to NaturalStatTrick.com. 

He excels at finding seams and threading the needle.

“Scheif has a way of being deceptive and maybe holding on for an extra second that maybe others don’t,” Arniel said after Winnipeg’s 3-0 win over the Utah Hockey Club on Nov. 5th. “He has a way of finding people.”

The 31-year-old centre does some of his best facilitating along the wall and that’ll help his odds of cracking a Canadian squad that’s stacked down the middle (with Connor Mcdavid, Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby, Brayden Point). His natural position isn’t going to be the only thing that changes if he makes the team. So, too, will be what’s expected of him. He won’t be the top power play performer, nor will he be counted on as the guy when his team needs a goal. But he’s proven this year he can provide value as a support player in a best-on-best tournament. 

“I would say the best two-way play of his career is going on right now. And there’s no doubt about that,” Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper, Team Canada’s bench boss, told reporters before his team faced Winnipeg on Thursday. 

Cooper, who has coached Scheifele at the world championships and when he played for Team North America at the World Cup of Hockey, thinks highly of the Jets star.

“If you’re going to talk about a student of the game and somebody that follows everything and knows everything that goes on in this league, it’s Mark Scheifele,” Cooper said “I really appreciate that about him, especially when I’m lacking some stat detail. You can always go to him.”

And, like we saw Tuesday night, Scheifele possesses the clutch gene. Among Canadians that have played in at least 30 playoff games since the 2017-18 season, only Logan Couture and Nathan MacKinnon have scored more goals per game than Scheifele (0.55) in the playoffs.

At this point, it’s safe to say you won’t regret ordering a Scheifele 4 Nations Face-Off jersey.

Monkey off Barron's back

Speaking of clutch, how about Morgan Barron’s two short-handed, empty-net goals against Florida? 

The first was an incredibly placed bank shot from his own end. 

“Barron went to Cornell, so he knows his angles,” Scheifele told Jets TV reporter Sara Orlesky in his post-game interview at ice-level. 

The second one came as a result of a key defensive zone retrieval before a perfect shot right into the middle of an empty net. Before his two goals, Barron was the lone regular Jets forward without a goal. But score totals aren’t fair measuring sticks for the 25-year-old, who is one of Arniel’s most trusted defensive forwards. 

"He's the first guy over the boards on the penalty kill with (Adam Lowry),” Arniel explained. “That's a big responsibility. You're obviously facing the No. 1 power play on the opposition all of the time. He's taken on that role. And tonight, there was lots of situations where I threw them against the Tkachuk line and they got the zone time.” 

According to NaturalStatTrick.com, Barron ranks second in five-on-five takeaways per 60 minutes (3.12) among forwards that have played at least 100 minutes this year. 

Other thoughts

• Arniel peeled back the curtain a bit on the Jets’ mindset ahead of their revenge game. He pinpointed a video session — particularly, the vibe within it — that gave him a good indicator of how much his team embraced the challenge. 

“We had a video session yesterday. The whole team. There was lots they got to see. And it wasn’t loud and screaming. It was just obvious. It was just obvious stuff that Florida did that we didn’t do. Everybody was involved in the video. Every guy got to be a star and I thought everybody wanted to make amends. And you could really feel it,” Arniel said. “This morning, our meetings getting ready — power play and penalty kill, our five-on-five .... — you could tell the guys really wanted another piece of the Florida Panthers. And I’m glad they’re in the Eastern Conference.”

• Tuesday was one of those nights where you saw why Arniel has been committed to running Scheifele alongside Gabriel Vilardi and Kyle Connor. They were firing on all cylinders, pinning the Panthers in their own zone for extended periods and creating a flurry of chances – off the cycle and rush. 

• Vilardi’s skillset along the wall is a big driver in that line’s ability to extend plays. He had a couple sequences where he won one-on-one battles, kept the puck down low — even using his feet at one point — before dishing it off to one of his linemates. 

“His stick is just fantastic,” Scheifele said of Vilradi. “He has a knack for holding onto the puck, being strong along the wall, having a very craft stick.”

• Winnipeg has scored at least five goals in 10 of its 19 games. Absurd.