KEVIN CHEVELDAYOFF TALKS JETS 2016-17 SEASON PREVIEW

KEVIN CHEVELDAYOFF TALKS JETS 2016-17 SEASON PREVIEW

By: Matthew Blittner


Kevin Cheveldayoff, g.m. for Winnipeg shared his thoughts on his long-term vision for the team, as well as tenure with the team so far with yours truly.
ON HIS LONG-TERM VISION: “We took over the hockey operations for the team 5 years ago and have steadily looked to build through the draft. Our goal is to bring in as much home-grown talent as possible and to then sprinkle in some outside free agents. I remember the first player we ever drafted: Mark Scheifele. He came up through our system, after we kept him on our junior league team for a couple of seasons. We have since signed him to a long-term contract as we envision him staying with us for a long time.”
THOUGHTS ON OFFSEASON MOVES: “We are very pleased with the results of the draft and free agency this year. The position that we were in and then winning the lottery with the second overall pick was huge. Everybody considers the first overall selection as winning the lottery, but for where we were, moving up to second was tremendous. With the second pick we selected Patrik Laine and have high hopes for him. He is the type of player that could make a difference for us at some point.
As for our free agent signings, we are particularly pleased to have gotten Shawn Matthias. He checks all the boxes for us, and is very similar to our signing of Mathieu Perreault who also checked all the boxes for us when we signed him.”
ON IMPACT OF PREVIOUS TRADES: “You never want to trade away a player who has been with you for a while, but sometimes, their contract status, or other factors can lead to you having to make some difficult decisions [regarding trades of Andrew Ladd and Evander Kane]. We received a number of young exciting prospects in return that could potentially help us during the coming season or two.”

THOUGHTS ON COMPETITIVENESS IN OUR DIVISION: “Obviously the goal is to win the Stanley Cup, but everybody has to earn what they get. We are in a very competitive division, that’s not going to change anytime soon. We have some exciting young talent coming up that will be pushing players for ice-time. Hopefully we play well and will be right in the thick of the race.”

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