Scheifele: 'Probably a little too honest' with end-of-year comments

Winnipeg Jets forward Mark Scheifele says he never doubted his future with the team despite creating speculation with his end-of-season comments in May.

In an interview with the team website posted to YouTube on Tuesday, Scheifele said he was confident he would stay with the team prior to the media storm that erupted when he stated he had "to think about my career and what’s going to be best for me," after the Jets missed the playoffs for the first time in five years.

"I was until I saw the media disaster that came from it. When I was saying my comments, it was kind of strange how so many people took it in such a different way," Scheifele said. "First of all, I started off the question that I was asked by saying 'I love it here, I've been here for 10 years, it's been an amazing community, it's been amazing to me, and I want to be a Winnipeg Jet.' And then everyone seemed to just start recording after that, so it's kind of one of those things that I was confident that I was going to be around.

"I knew there was going to be some hard questions to be asked on my part to management in terms of the direction of the team and I know a lot of the guys were kind of all in the same boat. The last couple of years haven't gone as planned, especially last year... I was confident I was coming back until I saw all the media headlines and then all of a sudden it's I'm getting traded and who knows where I'm going and all that stuff.

"It was kind of one of those the way media takes things, but that's life I was probably a little too honest. I'm usually just the cliché monster when it comes to the media, but I'm a guy that loves to talk hockey and that's kind of what I wanted to get some answers in, to talk hockey with management and see