Jets’ Morrissey motivated after missing ‘biggest game of my life’

WINNIPEG — Last Thursday, Josh Morrissey was bedridden with an illness in a Boston hotel room as his Team Canada teammates hoisted the 4 Nations Face-Off trophy.

This wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill flu.

“In the morning, I felt fine at the morning skate. Maybe not perfect, but felt fine. Then in the afternoon, I had my pre-game meal and sort of in the middle of the nap, it started to go sideways. I won’t get into any more detail than that. But I tried to get things to subside,” Morrissey told reporters on Sunday afternoon. “The team doc, we did everything possible. To me, that was the biggest game of my life and I didn’t want to miss that game.”

It was a devastating circumstance for Morrissey, who catapulted up Team Canada’s depth chart throughout the tournament and became a prominent part of the team’s backend. But there was nothing he could do.

“He played so good in that tournament and for a sickness like that to get you, especially a guy like that, it’s got to be really, really, really, really, really bad for him not to play a game,” Mark Scheifele said on Monday after scoring the overtime winner in the Winnipeg Jets’ 2-1 win over the San Jose Sharks. “And I knew it was really, really, really bad.”

Watching Morrissey on Monday, you would never guess what he had just endured days earlier.

From start to finish, he was the best player on the ice — registering one goal, four shots, and six shot attempts all the while playing a game-high 29:35 minutes. He logged 7:52 minutes in the final 11:23 of the third period.

“That’s one thing about Josh. His recovery is amazing,” head coach Scott Arniel said. “He said this morning he felt like he was 100 per cent. I don’t always want to go quite that high with the minutes, but it certainly paid off.”

To encapsulate his performance in one word: hungry.

Early in the first period, Morrissey joined the rush, opened his hips, and carried the puck from the left blue line down the wall and up to the right flank before setting up Nikolaj Ehlers for a net-front chance. Later in the period, Morrissey joined the rush once again and after his net front chance was denied, he relentlessly backchecked to support Logan Stanley, who would have been in a vulnerable spot defending a 2-on-1 if not for Morrissey’s backpressure.

At the 6:24 mark of the second period, Morrissey single-handedly killed off 12 seconds of San Jose’s power play — skating the puck from the right side of the blue line all the way around the net before retreating back out to the defensive zone and dishing the puck to Dylan DeMelo, who then iced the puck.

And if it weren’t for his third-period heroics, Winnipeg’s win streak wouldn’t have hit double digits. As the Jets trailed 1-0 with less than a minute and a half remaining and Connor Hellebuyck pulled for an extra attacker, Morrissey beelined to Winnipeg’s net to prevent a perfectly placed clear from turning into a goal. A minute later, with 27 seconds left on the clock, Morrissey stepped into a point shot that zipped past Vitek Vanecek and sent the game to overtime.

As the fans cheered, Morrissey’s beet-red face was shown sporting a smile on the jumbotron. Oddly, despite coming off such a rigorous shift, he almost appeared refreshed — like he could play another 25 minutes.

In the post-Paul Maurice/Blake Wheeler era, Morrissey has grown into a prominent leader for the Jets — a player whose output can single-handedly elevate those around him. His evolution over these last few years best encapsulates the evolution of this team’s core, the majority of whom have been here for all the trials and tribulations since the team’s 2018 Western Conference Final berth. In a lot of ways, Morrissey — in his words, and his play — has become a walking example of a player that’s sick and tired of coming up short in the playoffs.

That hunger we saw from Morrissey on Monday? It’s hard not to link it to his 4 Nations experience. Not the devastation of missing the final game. But the fact that he was an impact player on the world’s biggest stage.

“It was the fastest hockey I’ve ever played,” Morrissey said. “And that was kind of the general sentiment around our dressing room, even talking with guys like (Sidney Crosby) that had been in the 2010 and 2014 Olympics, he’s played everything, the Stanley Cup finals and everything else. Every guy was saying it was the fastest, most skilled and intense hockey they’d played. I’m always thinking about how I can improve as a player. And definitely being around those guys, being in that environment, playing on that stage in those pressure moments, I think I tried to soak it all in, learn a ton, and bring those things back with me to help me become a better player and be a better player here with the Jets and hopefully be able to play in big moments like that with our team.”

Scheifele Sets Franchise Record

Mark Scheifele, of all people, understands the significance of the Winnipeg Jets franchise — past and present.

That’s why, as gratifying as it was to score his 329th career goal — passing Ilya Kovalchuk to become the all-time leading goal scorer of the Jets/Thrashers franchise — it didn’t quite feel like an authentic moment in Jets history. Kovalchuk, mind you, never played a single game for Winnipeg. There are Thrashers banners hanging in the rafters of Canada Life Centre.

“I’m chasing a different guy. A guy that meant a lot to me and this community,” Scheifele told Jets host Sara Orlesky in a post-game rinkside interview. “That one will be even more special.”

He’s talking about the late Dale Hawerchuk, his junior coach and mentor. Scheifele is 51 goals away from surpassing Hawerchuk for the most goals ever scored in a Jets uniform.

That’s the kind of milestone that strikes a chord with Winnipegers. And when that day comes, it’ll be a full-circle, storybook moment — the first draft pick in 2.0 history surpassing ‘Ducky’ atop the (unofficial) all-time Jets leaderboard.

It may not technically be a “franchise record” but it will be far more significant than surpassing a player with no history to this city.