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Published May 18, 2025 • 4 minute read
Winnipeg Jets head coach Scott Arniel.
Winnipeg Jets head coach Scott Arniel. Photo by Kevin King /Winnipeg Sun
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No wonder Scott Arniel didn’t want to tell the story about his experience with a 3-1 series deficit.
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Going into Game 5 of the Jets-Dallas series here in Winnipeg, I asked the Jets coach if he’d ever been on a team that climbed out of that deep a hole in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and if there some words of wisdom he recalled from the experience.
“I don’t look back too much,” he said that day. “Nothing comes right to my head.”
The next day, during an informal chat, Arniel wanted to explain.
He knew exactly when a team he was part of overcame the kind of challenge the Jets were facing.
It was with the New York Rangers, trailing Pittsburgh three games to one in the second round of the 2014 playoffs.
Arniel was the Rangers associate coach when star centre Martin St. Louis was rocked by the death of his mother.
Three days later, in Game 6 – on Mother’s Day no less – St. Louis scored New York’s first goal and the Rangers came back all the way to win the series.
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You can see why Arniel didn’t want to bring up that experience going into Game 5. That Rangers team had a tragedy and heartbroken teammate to really around.
Trying to relate those motivating words and feelings to the Jets’ situation would have felt wrong.
Then came Saturday in Dallas, and a deja vu Arniel hoped he’d never experience.
It started with the devastating news of the passing of Mark Scheifele’s father.
It continued with Scheifele lifting his play to another level, scoring the game’s opening goal.
This time, though, it ended in more heartbreak, Scheifele in the penalty box for the game-losing goal in overtime.
Jets seasons have ended in many ways, but never like this.
They say Stanley Cup championships bond players forever. I’d venture a guess that day in Dallas will, too.
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Watching the postgame outpouring of emotion, both on the ice and in the interview room later, showed a unity that should galvanize this team for years to come.
It’s difficult to compare the feelings we witnessed Saturday with those that have bubbled to the surface at the bitter end of previous seasons.
Three years ago, there was the call for more accountability after the Jets missed the playoffs, and Scheifele wondering aloud if he even wanted to stick around.
A year later players had their noses out of joint because coach Rick Bowness had been too hard on them for their first-round playoff surrender to Vegas.
Last season’s disastrous first-round against Colorado had at least one player saying it was time to “question everything.”
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I doubt we’ll hear anything like that when the Jets hold their exit interviews on Tuesday.
This team has grown into something stronger, most of its weeds unearthed, roots and all.
“It’s been building,” head coach Scott Arniel said after it ended in Dallas. “Some things have happened over the last couple of years. Us being a tight-knit group, being family, you really saw it on display.”
Not just on Saturday, either.
“The 82 games were outstanding, the work that we put in to get ourselves where we did at the end of the season,” Arniel said. “Guys have to be awfully proud of that accomplishment. How we battled through the playoffs – lots of things happened.”
Like bouncing back from embarrassing road losses in Round 1 to force a seventh game against St. Louis.
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Like staring at the end, late in Game 7, only to pull off a miracle, then get through a marathon overtime without their best defenceman – and pull it out.
Like staving off elimination in Game 5 against Dallas.
And then Saturday’s emotional meat-grinder, a teammate dealing with a real-life tragedy, deciding to play because that’s what his dad would have wanted.
Their first period was predictably wobbly, goalie Connor Hellebuyck fighting back his own demons to keep them in it.
Their second period was the reverse, as they found yet another well, deep down inside.
Then a third period that went back and forth, two Stanley Cup contenders exchanging their best.
Until the end.
“We lost to a great team,” Arniel said. “We lost to a team that was in our rear-view mirror all year long.”
That’s not the same as beating themselves. And it’s definitely not the same as splintering into pieces when it’s over.
“I’ve seen it build over the last couple of years,” the coach said. “It starts in our room with our veterans, our leaders. When things are hard, things are tough, especially this year, we didn’t cower away from it. We faced it head on.”
From October to May, they gave Winnipeg a reason to cheer again.
Short by a month or so, perhaps.
But not short on heart.
paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca
X: @friesensunmedia
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