Jets hope Ehlers becomes a great Dane

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/07/2015 (3217 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

All the flash, dash and panache is still there. Those dynamic parts of Nikolaj Ehlers’ game, thankfully, haven’t changed one iota.

Yet, there were a couple of things noticeably different about the Dashing Dane after the first day of the Winnipeg Jets Development Camp Friday at the MTS Iceplex. First, his T-shirts are tighter now that he’s added 14 pounds of muscle — he’s up to 175 — since the end of his QMJHL season with the Halifax Mooseheads.

The other is a little more subtle, as the team issued a note to the press just prior to the camp stating Ehlers would henceforth prefer to be referred to as Nikolaj, not Nik. That will make life a tad less entertaining for headline writers, but the big question now is whether those tales will be written next winter at the National Hockey League level or back in junior.

Make no mistake, while Ehlers and head coach Paul Maurice attempted to steer clear of questions about where he might fit on the Jets depth chart — it is July, after all — it will be one of key storylines when the club is pieced together in September.

Is Nikolaj Ehlers NHL-ready? One vote, not surprisingly, has already been cast.

“Of course, I do,” said Ehlers when asked if he felt he was ready for the NHL. “I still have some stuff that I have to improve on, like getting bigger and stronger on the ice, off the ice. And I think with the time I have before the main camp I’ll be able to get ready and be ready to play.

“Obviously I want to make this team… this year. But right now I’m just thinking about this week, meeting the new guys and getting to know them. And just going out there and playing my game.”

Before the wrong impression is painted here about Ehlers, understand this: his confidence is understated and respectful. He’s not the type to thump his chest and mug for the television cameras. An example from Friday: asked about what he had to work on in his own game, he shrugged and said:

“Everything. There’s a lot of things I can still work on. You can never be too good at something. I’m going to focus on everything.”

He was on the ice for the opening of Jets D-camp for the first time since his Mooseheads’ season ended April 21. Since then he’s been working with a trainer to put on the weight in a good way — a teenager’s idea of a balanced meal, after all, is often a quarter-pounder in each hand — and he also has plans to train with older brother Sebastian’s team in Denmark, the Aalborg Pirates, before the end of the summer.

In other words, he’s all in to chase this spot everyone has seemingly reserved for him in the forward crew, especially with the departure of Michael Frolik to the Calgary Flames.

“They haven’t said anything and it’s not like I’m expecting to be on the team next year,” Ehlers said. “Everybody here is fighting for the spots on the team. I know what I need to do to be able to have a chance to make the team this year. But all the other guys know that, too. It’s going to be hard and I know that I have to work hard this summer and be ready to go out there and show what I can do. It’s going to be exciting to see what happens. I’m going to be working out hard to make the team this year.

“You set your goal, you want to be on the team.” added Ehlers. “But you also know you’re going to be competing against other guys. It’s not just going out there and doing your thing every single time on the ice. You’ve got to go out there and have fun playing hockey with the other guys because they might be your teammates in two or three years.”

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ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait