Dustin Byfuglien's move to defense saved the Jets from potential disaster. (USATSI)
Dustin Byfuglien's move to defense saved the Jets from potential disaster. (USATSI)

When a team essentially loses four of its top five defensemen for any stretch of time, it should be crippling. Replacing those minutes adequately, even if temporary, is near impossible. However, when that happened to the Winnipeg Jets earlier this season, instead of crippling the team, the unexpected change in plans may have helped the Jets fortify their blue line for a playoff run.

In late November, the Jets lost top defenseman Tobias Enstrom to a lower-body injury. Two weeks later, Zach Bogosian went down, also with a lower-body injury. That left Winnipeg without two of their top three defensemen for over a month.  The Jets were in a serious bind with few easy solutions, but the best way for them to address their thinning blue line was staying in-house.

Lucky for the Jets, they already had the No. 1 defenseman they so sorely needed playing right wing in their top six. Dustin Byfuglien was moved back to his natural position of defense on Dec. 5. It had been nearly a year since coach Claude Noel moved Byfuglien to forward to goose scoring. Just days later, Noel was fired, but new head coach Paul Maurice decided it was best to keep Byfuglien at forward.

It was a move that Byfuglien didn’t sound totally thrilled with at the time, and now that he’s back on defense, he has been showing that it’s probably where he belongs. If Byfuglien had been on the blue line all year and is playing the way he has been since moving back, he’d be a surefire Norris Trophy candidate.

However, just as Byfuglien was settling into his new-old position, the Jets blue line took more hits.

Less than two weeks after Bogosian’s injury triggered the Byfuglien move, Jacob Trouba was shut down until February after a lingering injury flared up and required him to rest. He had been averaging the second-most minutes on the team at that point. That same day, veteran Mark Stuart went down with an injury. Then bottom-pairing defender Grant Clitsome went on injured reserve after undergoing back surgery earlier this month.

A team losing five regulars in relatively quick succession, especially on the back, should have been a death knell for what had been a fairly exciting season in Winnipeg to date.

The Jets have not had a robust trade record, but GM Kevin Cheveldayoff did manage to bring in veteran defenseman Jay Harrison in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes. He and Byfuglien were really the only “fresh blood” on a defense that wasn’t exactly teeming with depth.

Since moving back to the blue line, Byfuglien has routinely played between 27 and 29 minutes each game, which puts him among the busiest defensemen in the league. He has also been more productive in 18 games at defense as he was in 26 up front this year. The 29-year-old has 17 points since moving back after collecting just 11 as a forward earlier this season. He’s also averaging over three shots on goal per game from the blue line, making him a continual threat to opposing teams.

Byfuglien has also been destroying the opposition with his physicality. In a recent game against the Los Angeles Kings, Byfuglien first took Drew Doughty off his feet with a booming check and within seconds he had planted Anze Kopitar on his backside. Byfuglien got a penalty for the latter, but replays showed that call to be a bit of a marginal call. It was still a great example of the immense physical strength Byfuglien possesses within his 6-foot-5, 260-pound frame.

One of the hardest pieces to find on the trade market at any time of year is a top-pairing defenseman. We hear it every year that those guys just aren’t available. Consider that, plus the aforementioned miniscule trade record and you’ll know that finding what the Jets needed outside of the organization wasn’t going to happen.

They were lucky enough to have had one all along. He was just playing in the wrong spot.

Coaches have seemingly had a hard time figuring out what to do with Byfuglien because he’s bounced between forward and defense many times throughout his career.

He helped the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in 2010 as a net-front forward that terrorized goalies to the tune of 11 goals in 22 postseason games. When he was traded to the Atlanta Thrashers as a cap casualty in Chicago, he was moved back to his natural position of defense.

He scored 20 goals and 53 points from the blue line that season and finished seventh in Norris Trophy voting.  He registered 53 points again the following season, 28 in the lockout-shortened season and 34 before he got pushed to forward last season.

The problem with being an offensive defenseman is that the perception somehow becomes that the player is poor defensively. Byfuglien definitely has been guilty of making mistakes like turning the puck over or getting caught to deep, but he has been a positive possession player throughout his career, and at his best on the back end in that regard.

As part of the Jets organization, he has a career Corsi for percentage of 51.7 according to hockey-reference.com with a 2.1 percent relative Corsi over that span. Additionally, since Byfuglien moved back to defense, the Jets' possession numbers improved by more than a full percentage point.

The team's Corsi for percentage with Byfuglien at forward this year was 52.1 percent, while it has been up a tick at 53.5 percent over the last 18 games according to war-on-ice.com. Again, considering the lack of depth on the blue line, it's pretty remarkable to see improvement there.

With the number of points Byfuglien produces, the number of minutes he is able to play effectively and the general presence he brings when he’s on the ice, the good far outweighs the bad. That has never been more evident than over the last five weeks.

Despite all of the personnel losses the Jets endured, losses that should have been impossible to overcome, the team went 8-5-4 since sliding Byfuglien. They lost more games than they won, but they took points in 12 when their patchwork defense probably should have been getting rolled by deeper teams.

Now the Jets are starting to get healthy with Enstrom, Bogosian and Stuart back in the lineup. Trouba is expected to return in a few weeks. Add all of those guys back to the mix with Byfuglien remaining as the No. 1 in the group and the Jets have a blue line that looks far better than it did before everyone went down with injuries.

Now it should be noted that Byfuglien didn’t drag this team through this last stretch on his own. Defenseman Ben Chiarot has been a revelation, stepping up in the absence of the more established players that were injured. Rookie Michael Hutchinson has given the Jets the best stretch of goaltending since they arrived in Winnipeg. Offseason addition Mathieu Perreault has been surpassing expectations with his production. And lastly, Paul Maurice has been getting a lot out of the lineup as head coach. He earned his 500th career victory in the NHL Tuesday night as Winnipeg rolled the Florida Panthers by an 8-2 score. Byfuglien had two goals and an assist in that one, by the way.

The good people of Winnipeg have reason to be excited about their hockey team again, and not simply be happy that they exist. Things will get tougher for this group down the stretch as the playoff race heats up, but the Jets are building themselves a nice cushion in the wild card race, currently three points clear of fellow wild card holder Vancouver and five points clear of the next closest team, Calgary.

It’s hard to imagine the Jets being able to make a lot of noise beyond the first round, but this team is in as good a position as it has been since moving to Winnipeg. Certain pieces are falling into place. And all it took was a potential disaster run of injuries to help arrange those pieces in just the right way. This can be a funny game sometimes.