Music: {allcanada} JETS GM FIERCELY DEFENDS SCHEIFELE

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

{allcanada} JETS GM FIERCELY DEFENDS SCHEIFELE

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The Winnipeg Free Press elicited some ferocious quotes from Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff in a recent interview.

The chatter in some circles has been the organization might be disappointed, impatient or worried that 2011 first-round draft pick Mark Scheifele did not stick with the NHL team after the lockout.

"I'm worried? Me?" he said recently. "You know what, I can't even comment on stuff like that. It's not even dignified to comment on it. This player was in the top three for his team at the World Junior. You talk to his coaches about what he was like at the World Junior; this can't be farther from the truth.

"That's the hard part about the world we're living in. It takes one person to say, 'Chevy's thinking this,' and it can have no basis or merit to it whatsoever, so where's the accountability from the person starting this?

"If you hear it from my mouth, believe it. If you don't hear it from my mouth, don't believe it.

"That's, I think, the bottom line. He's got 39 goals. He's becoming a leader. He's doing all those things that need to be done. I don't even know how to respond to that."

Was he disappointed to have to make the send-down decision after four NHL games this season for Scheifele?

"You're using the term disappointed," the GM said. "Why should we be bringing that up? Why should a 19-year-old have to play in the National Hockey League? Why should an 18-year-old have to play in the National Hockey League? These are things that we as an impatient society, group, hockey industry want to happen now. I don't get it. There's not an ounce of disappointment about sending him back to junior.

"These are things that single words can misconstrue so much. Nineteen-year-olds should be at the junior level unless they are absolutely ready to play at the National Hockey League level. We've talked with Mark when sending him back, we think the skills are there. We thing the hockey sense is definitely there. We think the ability to play with NHL people, that's there. The thing we want to make sure we don't make a mistake on is strength. You can't push a kid to grow. You can't push him; those things just happen on their own. Again, I'm just citing a case in point, but today Buffalo just sent back Michael Grigorenko.

"It shouldn't be a knock against anyone. But it's the reality for 18- and 19-year-old kids, that we as an industry, it's like eating your own young. Why do we want to do that?"