Rick Bowness absolutely ripped into his team after an embarrassing performance in Game 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights ended the Winnipeg Jets' season — and a few of his players were not happy with the comments.
“I thought Bones had an opportunity to address us as a team. He could've been honest with us, handled it behind closed doors,” forward Blake Wheeler said at the team's end of season media availability on Saturday, according to TSN's John Lu. “I didn't like how he handled himself after the game.”
Wheeler clarified that Bowness expressed his disappointment to the team after the second period of Game 5, and said his issue with his coach was publicly venting after the game, per Lu.
Kyle Connor said that his coach's comments reflect an “emotional guy who wants to win,” but told media they can ask Bowness himself if he thought it was a mistake or if he wishes he had handled the situation differently.
Although both Connor and Wheeler said they don't expect their coach to be perfect, they wish he had kept his comments behind closed doors.
The remarks come after Bowness laid into his team for their lack of effort after losing 4-1 in Game 5 in Las Vegas to lose their first-round series 4-1, and make their 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs journey a very short one.
“I'm so disappointed and disgusted right now, that's my thoughts,” Bowness said on Thursday night. “No pushback. It's the same crap we saw in February. As soon as we were challenged for first place, and teams were coming after us, we had no pushback. This series we had no pushback. Their better players were so much better than ours it’s not even close…They were the better team in the regular season, they were the better team in this series.”
It makes sense that the Jets weren't too happy with Rick Bowness going on the record after an emotional series loss with his scorched earth comments.
But one thing is becoming abundantly clear for a team that cannot find a way to win in the postseason: something needs to change in Winnipeg.
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