Game 10 vs Washington: Pavelec and Entries

10 years ago

A pity-point was all the Jets were able to muster from what was likely their best performance of the season this far. Why? Well, the performance from the man in net was a big reason for the night’s disappointment.

Zone Entries

5 vs 5	Player	# of successful entries	Shots (From Entries)	Shots/Entry	Controlled Entries	Shots (Controlled Entries)	% With Control	% That Fail
2	Pardy	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	100.0%
4	Postma	1	0	0.00	0	0	0%	100.0%
9	Kane	17	8	0.47	13	8	76%	7.1%
12	Jokinen	1	1	1.00	1	1	100%	0.0%
14	Peluso	4	2	0.50	3	2	75%	25.0%
15	Halischuk	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
16	Ladd	12	8	0.67	8	7	67%	11.1%
17	Wright	2	1	0.50	2	1	100%	33.3%
18	Little	5	7	1.40	5	7	100%	16.7%
24	Clitsome	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
26	Wheeler	7	6	0.86	2	2	29%	33.3%
28	Cormier	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
33	Byfuglien	3	2	0.67	0	0	0%	N/A
39	Enstrom	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
40	Setoguchi	5	4	0.80	4	4	80%	0.0%
44	Bogosian	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
55	Scheifele	4	0	0.00	2	0	50%	33.3%
67	Frolik	5	2	0.40	3	2	60%	25.0%
	TEAM	66	41	0.62	43	34	65%	20.4%
	OPP	68	21	0.31	31	12	46%	31.1%
	OZF	15	4	0.27
	DZF	16	10	0.63

Observations

As a whole, the Jets did a fantastic job of limiting what the often-dangerous Washington Capitals were able to create. They limited the Caps to less than half a shot per entry during 5 on 5 play, and a failure rate above 30%. For a game that had plenty of chances, the Jets did a good job at limiting the overall load that Pavelec faced.
Wheeler had what I thought was his best, most effective game of the year. He got back in the habit of dumping the puck in a little bit, but playing alongside Evander Kane for most of the night allowed that to be effective. A few times on the night we saw Wheels deliberately dump the puck mid-way into the zone and across the ice, allowing Kane to rush onto it and generate a chance.
Speaking of Evander, he did his usual thing.
Both Ladd and Little had better nights as well. Ladd was above 1 shot per entry, and Ladd clearly took Claude’s words about the “lack of a leader” to heart. He was generating a lot of rushes, and was clearing making more of an effort to carry the puck tonight.
Scheifele was generally ineffective with his carries again. Overall, I thought he played a good game regardless. The kid is young. Things aren’t all going to happen at once for him. No need to stress here…yet.
Jokinen took a bit of a step back tonight with his entries, but I thought he had a solid overall game as well.
One thing is of great concern. Zach Bogosian seems to have lost his offensive flair completely. In fact, his confidence is completely gone. He has made many poor decisions on the season and has cost the Jets a lot of goals. I am hopeful this is more of a bump in the road than the real Zach, but he needs to pick things up quickly.

Pavelec Performance

Before I break down the goals against Pavelec, I need to say this. I feel as if he played a big role in the Jets loss. Although the goals he allowed weren’t really his fault, he was completely unable (again) to make the big save and was simply outclassed by an average goalie…again. Holtby made at LEAST 3 breakaway saves on the night, as well as countless other timely saves for his greatly out chanced team, and Pavelec simply could not match him. The Jets also gave Pav three different opportunities to redeem himself with a game winning save in the shootout, and he just couldn’t do it. So although he may not be directly at fault for much this game, I put a lot of the burden for this loss on his shoulders:

Goal	Situation	Reason It Went In	Where It Went
1	Sustained Pressure	Bad Break	Open Net
2	Breakaway	Beat Clean	Blocker Side
3	Average Play (Faceoff Loss)	Beat Clean (Pavelec Fault)	Blocker
4	Jets Penalty Kill	Beat Clean	Blocker

Quick Explanations

Crappy bounce here. Bogosian had a chance to clear this puck but wasn’t able too, then unfortunately gloved it right onto Grabovski’s stick. Remember how the Jets could have claimed him on waivers?

It’s never a good idea to give Ovechkin a breakaway. Holtby stopped at least two breakaway chances before this, but none by Ovechkin. Pav bit hard on Ovie’s fake, then decided to go all “flopping fish” on us in an attempt to stop the puck. Interesting choice Pav.

Say what you will, I think Pavelec has to have that. Craig Button agrees with me on this one, as on That’s Hockey 2Nite he said “(The Jets) would like to see him make that save”.

This was a nice play after the Jets were unable to clear the puck when they had the chance. One thing I’d like to point out though. Pavelec was painfully slow in his attempt to get across the crease. He could have made this goal a lot more difficult, or even could have stopped it, if he reacted faster.

Things to Watch

The up and down Jets play in Nashville on Thursday night, as they will try to both repeat their performance from last night and get revenge on a Preds team that beat them Sunday.

Which Jets team will show up? The Jets have been a Jekyll and Hyde story all year long. Heck, It tends to change period to period at times with these guys. So what team will show up in Nashville?
The penalty kill… Crap. I must have jinxed it somehow. The Jets penalty kill gave up a lot of chances but only broke once against the Caps. It has been a strong point, but if they keep playing like they did last night, that won’t last long.
Where the heck is the power play? The Jets power play is ranked 23rd in the league right now and has been almost invisible on most nights. This has to become a focus.

Final Thought

It was Hockey Fights Cancer night at the MTS Centre. The Jets brought out a few kids who have fought the disease before the game in a really cool pre-game moment. I’ve been lucky enough to be minimally impacted by cancer throughout my and my family’s life. My heart goes out to those who have had to deal with it. We here at Jets Nation want to wish our readers another year of good health and happiness.