Scott Arniel's emotional speech about Mark Scheifele following Game 6 loss.

It was nothing short of gut wrenching to watch the Winnipeg Jets lose Game 6 on Saturday night, and all of it for reasons that had nothing to do with the sport of hockey. Earlier in the day the Jets had announced that the father of Jets star forward Mark Scheifele, Brad Scheifele, had suddenly and tragically passed away during the night.

Everyone would have understood if Scheifele had made the decision to sit out Game 6 as a result of the horrible tragedy that had hit his family, but much to his credit he would not only show up to the arena with his teammates but proved to be a significant factor in Game 6 as well. In fact it would be Scheifele himself who would open up the scoring in Game 6, giving his team an early 1-0 lead.

Unfortunately his team would not be able to maintain that lead and eventually, as Scheifele sat in the penalty box after taking a late tripping penalty, the Dallas Stars would punch their ticket to the Western Conference Final with a power play goal in overtime.

In spite of the fact that they had just been eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs after a Presidents' Trophy winning season, it was evident that all of the focus after the loss in Game 6 was on Schiefele and his family. There was no clearer indication of that than the members of the Jets locker room who spoke to the media after the loss.

"I don't know," said Jets head coach Scott Arniel, his voice trembling with emotion. "For him to go through what he had to go through and then perform the way he did... I'm so proud of him and his dad would be so proud of him."

It was obvious that Arniel was devastated by the fact that the team had been unable to get the win for Scheifele given the circumstances.

"He wanted to win so bad," said Arniel his voice breaking again. "You know the circumstances it's so, so tough to be in a situation like that, I couldn't imagine it.... like I said his dad and his family would be very proud of him."

It was an incredibly emotional speech from Arniel and one that I highly recommend you see for yourself, you can do so in the short clip linked below.