Jim Playfair Loses His Composure
Jim Playfair, coach of the Abbotsford Heat, disagrees with a ref’s call on the ice.
In 72 games, Jaffray led the fledgling Abbotsford Heat in scoring with 25 goals and 54 points. He made the American Hockey League all-star team.
Determined to upgrade his defensive game, Jaffray posted an impressive plus-minus rating of plus-24.
“That’s something I was really proud of,” he says. “That was a stat I followed all season.”
Especially considering he moved to centre after playing the vast majority of his career on the wing.
“I improved my game immensely,” he says. “To be able to come in and have a great season adds to my position in the system. So, hopefully, things come together.”
In the short term, Jaffray is shooting to recover from a groin pull in time to help the Heat advance beyond the first round of the AHL playoffs.
The Rochester Americans lead the best-of-seven series 2-1, with Game 4 tonight at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre.
“He has developed into a well respected American League player,” Heat coach Jim Playfair says of his top offensive threat. “Now he has to continue to develop into a National League player. And I think he will.”
Some players, by the time they reach 29, might quit and choose a different career path. But Jaffray is determined to pull out every stop to achieve his dream.
That’s why he left the Manitoba Moose and the Vancouver Canucks organization last summer for a new opportunity with the Flames.
“I’ve been so close over the last couple years,” he says “I thought maybe if I had a change of scenery, I could make that jump.”
There’s always next season. “I signed a two-year contract for a reason,” Jaffray says. “I wanted to work my way up through the system.
“Guys like David Moss and Eric Nystrom and Dustin Boyd went up the same way I did.”
Playfair understands the frustrations of players like Jaffray, who live on the cusp of the big time. After all, Playfair played just 21 career NHL games with the Edmonton Oilers and Chicago Blackhawks. His big brother Larry suited up for 668 career NHL games with the Buffalo Sabres and Los Angeles Kings.
So he gets it.
“Jaff’s got a really good disposition,” Playfair says. “He’s a zero-maintenance player. He doesn’t come in and complain and let me know what’s going on in Calgary that he should be up there to fix.”
The fans let their displeasure be known in that department this season with Jaffray in the minors and the Flames unable to score with any regularity.
“You might think I’m bitter or something like that,” Jaffray says. “Well, I’m not. Mikael Backlund played great when he was up there, and he maybe earned a spot for next year. It was a case of bad timing for me. When I was playing my best hockey, nobody was going down with injuries up in Calgary.”
Curtis Glencross, Christopher Higgins and Daymond Langkow went down with injuries in March. The Flames called up defensive-minded forward Brett Sutter to fill the void.
“They were looking for a penalty killer at the time, and Brett was one of our better penalty killers,” Jaffray says. “The timing was good for him and bad for me. About two weeks before that, I was taken off the penalty kill.
“So you never know. If it happened two weeks before that, it might have been me.”
Might have been. Could have been. Perhaps should have been.
Such is the lament of a man so agonizingly close to realizing his dream.
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