DALLAS — On the day he learned that his father had died, Mark Scheifele walked into the rink with his Winnipeg Jets teammates, and tonight he will play with them as his other family tries to extend their National Hockey League season.
The longest-tenured Jet, Scheifele learned Saturday morning that his dad, Brad, had passed away overnight after an illness. He was 68.
“It rocked us all this morning when we found out,” head coach Scott Arniel said in a late-afternoon press conference after spending the day with Scheifele at the team’s hotel. “Mark will be playing tonight. As he said, that would be the wishes of his dad — that he would want him to play. And I know he’s been rooting us on here. I know that he’s been pushing hard. We got to see him earlier in the St Louis series. You know, he’s with us, and Mark really wants to play for him tonight.”
After beating the Dallas Stars 4-0 on Thursday when Scheifele had an outstanding game, the Jets still trail 3-2 in the second-round playoff series and need to win Game 6 here Saturday night to force a deciding game Monday in Winnipeg.
Brad Scheifele, who was a fixture on the Jets’ “fathers’ trips” since his son was an NHL rookie in 2013, saw Mark play during the Jets’ seven-game series win against the St. Louis Blues in Round 1.
“It kind of puts in perspective that this is just a game,” Arniel, who lost his own father three years ago, told reporters. “Certainly when life situations happen like this, they’re hard on everybody. But you know what? Mark doesn’t want those guys to, you know, hang their heads or be down. He wants a win. And that’s what they’re all talking about: ‘We want to get a win for Mr. Scheifele, (and) get a chance to get ourselves back home to play Game 7.’”
Scheifele, 32, missed the final two games of the St. Louis series after absorbing a heavy, high hit from Brayden Schenn. He has averaged nearly 21 minutes against the Stars and was arguably their best skater in Game 5.
He was targeted late in the game by Stars captain Jamie Benn, who was fined $5,000 by the NHL for a sucker punch that knocked Scheifele to the ice while the Jet was being restrained by a linesman.
Scheifele told reporters in Winnipeg before Friday’s flight to Dallas that “my face hurts.”
He told Sportsnet before Game 5: “I love this group of guys. This team has been such a blast to be a part of for my whole career. And then this year has been one of the best years I’ve had with a group of guys. You know, it is a special group. It’s a special team. It’s an uphill climb right now, but there’s no other team I’d want to do this battle with.”
He will be battling with them Saturday night. Doubtless, he will be fighting emotions, too.
Many of the Jets players, and all the veterans who formed the team’s core years ago, knew Brad Scheifele. The family is from the Kitchener, Ont. area.
“Just such an infectious laugh,” Winnipeg captain Adam Lowry said after a morning skate that was absent Arniel and Scheifele. “Spending my whole career here, numerous fathers’ trips, just the energy that he had was unmatched. . . just his joy and excitement for life. I think his positivity, his outlook on life, just a genuinely happy person. It’s a terrible loss. It’s tough to put into words how gutted we all feel for Mark and his family.”
Lowry later added: “It’s important that we’re there for (Mark). . . just in whatever capacity he needs. I think he needs to know that everyone in that room is there to support him, you know, to be whatever he needs us to be. It’s one of those things that you don’t wish upon anyone, and just really hope that he’s got the family strength, the great support system around him that helps ease this pain. Because that’s such a big loss. That’s your mentor, that’s the person you looked up to growing up, it’s the person you want to be like.”
The Jets captain and a teammate of Scheifele for 11 seasons, Lowry admitted the grief the Jets feel is “not an easy thing to navigate” as the team faces elimination from the playoffs.
Arniel said teammates were able to hug and talk to Scheifele during the pre-game meal at the Jets’ hotel, and said his player was doing as well as could be expected.
“Whether it’s winning a hockey game or losing a hockey game or something as serious as this, we’ve got a game to play and we’re going to go out and play hard for Mark,” Arniel said. “That’s pretty much the chatter that’s happening (within the team), and everyone will make sure that we don’t let him down.
“I talked to the team this morning (and) it was one of the first things that we talked about — that Mark expressed quickly that he wanted to play for his dad, and this is what his dad would have wanted. (They) were glad to hear that, that they can help him get through this situation.”
Scheifele said before Game 5 that he was embracing the challenge of coming back against the Stars, who are one game away from their third straight appearance in the Western Conference Final. This is the farthest the Jets have travelled in the Stanley Cup playoffs since losing the conference final in 2018.
“That’s what we love to do — is go play in these big games and big moments,” Scheifele said. “We all put pressure on ourselves. But at the end of the day, you’ve just got to go play a hockey game.”
