Given the benefit of time — months in this case — Paul Maurice could have over-thought his lineup into oblivion.

One can imagine the head coach of the Winnipeg Jets’ dry-erase board took quite the beating during the NHL’s pause due to COVID-19. But with every tweak here or there that he may have made, a subsequent swipe of the eraser followed.

He had his 12 already and knew where they were to be placed.

The formula, albeit briefly followed thanks to a global pandemic, had worked relative wonders for the Jets in the lead up to halted proceedings. A four-game winning streak, a playoff push that was headed in the right direction and four lines that exhibited the type of chemistry you’d like to see.

Kyle Connor-Mark Scheifele-Blake Wheeler

Nikolaj Ehlers-Cody Eakin-Patrik Laine

Andrew Copp-Adam Lowry-Jack Roslovic

Mathieu Perreault-Nick Shore-Mason Appleton

Speaking for the first time inside the bubble in the hub city of Edmonton on Monday morning, Maurice said the reason for his final decision was two-fold.

“We don’t have any time to experiment right now. Now is not the time,” Maurice said. “We don’t have seven exhibition games or 82 (regular season) games. So we finished with something that I liked, that we could really never use this year because we just didn’t have the health. We’ve got a healthy club (now). This is how I see the lines structuring out.”

Being healthy isn’t something Maurice could say too often during the regular season. In fact, by and large, he couldn’t say until Adam Lowry returned to the lineup two games prior to the regular season’s eventual end.

“I’ve never had a season where my lineup cards looked so different on a nightly basis. And that wasn’t really tactical decisions,” Maurice said.

Indeed, while Maurice had several decisions he could have made given the health of his club during Phase 3 of the NHL’s restart plan, during the regular-season proper, Maurice’s choices were swayed by who was healthy and who general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff managed to collect off the waiver wire after a corresponding player went out of the lineup with an ailment.

“The lines are the way they are, it’s kind of how I have had them in my head over the first 71 games, more daydreaming and wishful thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have Adam Lowry in the lineup’ and all of those other things that we went through,” Maurice said. “And now, we have a chance to see them. We saw them toward the end, before the pause, and we liked the way they looked.”

They survived, as Maurice put it on Monday.

“What bothered me the most was I felt that we had survived,” Maurice said, qualifying that answer, first, by acknowledging the great losses the world has suffered during the pandemic. “I had felt that, gosh, the number of things, the injuries, the changes to our blue line, all of the hardship that we had just seemed to be turning the corner for us. We got everybody healthy. We won four in a row. Our schedule, we had paid for a really difficult schedule and it laid out really, really good for us right down the stretch. We had all these good things going for us and boom, it was gone.

“That ended up being exactly like our season.”

There was a good feeling in the room, something that was expressed by both Maurice and his players prior to the pause.

“Well, I think we had the ability to put any line out in any situation,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. “There wasn’t a reliance on one line that had to play like over 20 demanding minutes. That can really take the wind out of your sails over an extended period of time. When you have four lines with the ability to chew on some minutes in a game and be effective, it allows everyone from top to bottom to have more energy, to make a more meaningful impact on the game. I think all of our lines were playing well and feeling good. Obviously, our line spent a lot of time together. Nikky and Patty have spent a lot of time together. Adam and Copper have spent a lot of time together. Just a couple new faces in on those few lines. I think we were starting to connect on all cylinders.”

‘HOCKEY IN ITS PUREST FORM’

If there is one rendition of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in NHL history that will be devoid of all of the regular distractions there usually is, 2020 is it.

There are no travel requirements, no real home-ice advantages outside of possessing the final line change, and no family commitments, among other things.

Hotel, rink, hotel, repeat.

It’s focused.

“There’s only hockey,” Maurice said. “These guys are going to be able to run straight focused right through to the Final.”

Maurice feels that will benefit his club, too.

“For a hockey team like ours, that travel is a factor. You get off the plane at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. in the morning enough times, it starts to set you back,” he said. “So these guys are going to be really well-rested, really well taken care of, very, very focused. You’re not hanging 82 games on them. My list, it’s probably nine-to-13 guys every single day at this time of year haven’t played straight through. We got a real quiet medical room, fortunately. I think a lot of teams do. Once you get over that, hey there’s nobody in the stands, all of the other things that we’ve talked about, if you look just at the opportunity to be great, for your team to feel good, to be healthy, to drive at a very high level. Playoff hockey on steroids.

“There’s a chance this is as good of hockey that I’ve ever seen.”

sbilleck@postmedia.com

Twitter: @scottbilleck