Jets head coach Arniel on historic start: ‘You don’t get handed a Stanley Cup in November’
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The Winnipeg Jets became the fastest team to 15 wins in NHL history on Tuesday night in their 6-3 victory over the New York Rangers but the Jets don’t have time to dwell on the achievement.
From Oct. 18 to Nov. 9, the Jets played every other day, going 11-1 with their lone loss of the season coming on Oct. 28 against the Toronto Maple Leafs. But their 7-0-0 record on the road is about to be tested in a big way.
Currently in the midst of a three-game road trip that includes Tampa Bay Thursday and the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Saturday, the Jets will return home with another date against Florida on Tuesday before spending eight of their next nine games on the road again.
Jets head coach Scott Arniel gives all the credit to his players for coming to ready to play every game despite the short amount of rest.
“Sometimes you just shake your head,” said Arniel on the Ray & Dregs podcast. “I got to put all the credit on the players. These guys, the way they’ve been able to reset, we just talked about the schedule, but it’s just one game after the other and they’ve done a fantastic job with preparing for the opponent, playing that game and then turn and put it behind us to move on to the next one.
“There’s been zero talk about what we’re doing. It’s just been next opponent, let’s go because it’s a tough game every game. Everybody at this time of year is a tough out.”
Arniel was named head coach of the Jets on May 24, replacing Rick Bowness who retired after the season. He also acted as interim head coach last season at times while Bowness stepped away for personal reasons.
The 61-year-old Arniel says last year’s first-round exit in five games to the Colorado Avalanche still stings. The Jets had a great regular season, winning 52 games with 110 points to finish second in the Central Division but didn’t have an answer for the Avs, the 2022 Stanley Cup champions.
“People maybe don’t really understand the kind of embarrassment, the frustration that we went through after having such a fantastic year last year,” said Arniel. “For us as a group we felt it was amazing, 82 games, we didn’t have great highs and great lows that season just cruised through with 110 points.
“We felt we were a team that was rising, we won eight in a row to end the season, we thought it was the perfect match for Colorado and we got embarrassed. We got thoroughly embarrassed.”
Since moving from Atlanta to Winnipeg ahead of the 2011-12 season, the Jets have made it past the first round just twice. They went to the conference finals in 2018 but lost in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights and in 2021, they were swept by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round during the all-Canadian division playoffs during the 2021 shortened season.
Arniel says the team is focused on the present and despite being proud at the excellent start, no awards are handed out at this time of year.
“It’s why they all say right now, you don’t get handed a Stanley Cup in November,” said Arniel. “We’re trying to get calluses, grow some skin here to have what it takes when we hit April.”