Game 46 vs Tampa: Neutral Zone Play and Pavelec Performance

10 years ago

Another game, another night that has sent the masses home calling for someone’s head. As the questionable decision-making continues, could this be the last time Jets fans are sent calling for Claude Noel’s job? With every passing game his job seems to be slipping further and further out of his grasp.

Zone Entries

5 vs 5	Player	# of successful entries	Shots (From Entries)	Shots/Entry	Controlled Entries	Shots (From Control)	Shots/ Controlled	% With Control
2	Pardy	1	1	1.00	0	0	N/A	0%
5	Stuart	1	0	0.00	0	0	N/A	0%
8	Trouba	1	0	0.00	1	0	0.00	100%
9	Kane	9	3	0.33	6	3	0.50	67%
12	Jokinen	6	1	0.17	1	0	0.00	17%
16	Ladd	4	1	0.25	2	1	0.50	50%
17	Wright	4	0	0.00	1	0	0.00	25%
18	Little	2	2	1.00	2	2	1.00	100%
22	Thorburn	1	0	0.00	0	0	N/A	0%
26	Wheeler	4	1	0.25	1	1	1.00	25%
27	Tangradi	5	3	0.60	2	2	1.00	40%
33	Byfuglien	3	1	0.33	0	0	N/A	0%
39	Enstrom	1	0	0.00	0	0	N/A	0%
40	Setoguchi	1	0	0.00	1	0	0.00	100%
44	Bogosian	2	0	0.00	0	0	N/A	0%
55	Scheifele	3	2	0.67	3	2	0.67	100%
58	O’Dell	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
67	Frolik	6	0	0.00	3	0	0.00	50%
	JETS	54	15	0.28	23	11	0.48	43%
	OPP	56	21	0.38	31	15	0.48	55%
	OZF	15	9	0.60
	DZF	17	3	0.18

Observations

Tampa won in every zone of the rink on Tuesday night. They limited the Jets chances, had a plethora of chances of their own, and clearly dominated the neutral zone. The Jets couldn’t get anything going, while the Lightning were able to quite efficiently enter the Jets zone. Their shot attempt totals may not be high, but spending so much time in the Jets end with control certainly helped their victory. Of course, this sort of dominant performance is always enhanced by the desire of Claude Noel to promote the “dump and chase” method.
If nothing I’ve written before has led you to question Claude’s decision making, how about this next little tid-bit. Remember when Blake Wheeler went down for that short time following his blocked shot? Well, while Wheeler was recovering from that Coach Noel had to put someone up with Little and Ladd. Who did he choose? James Wright.
There really wasn’t a Jet line that played “well” against Tampa. The fourth line wasn’t completely dominated and played huge minutes, despite the Jets only being down by one goal in the third (another questionable choice), and there was a lot of random line mixing going on.
The Kane-Scheifele-Frolik line managed to stay together for the most part, and did all right with that opportunity. If nothing else, they did manage to get the puck into Tampa’s zone with some consistency, thus limiting the opportunities against. At this time, they are by far the Jets best line.

Pavelec Performance

I thought Pavelec had a solid game against the Lightning. The team in front of him was just terrible, giving up an unbelievable number of grade-A chances, and he held his own as best he could. He made Tampa work for their goals on the night, and that’s a rare accomplishment when it comes to Pav. He earned his credit on this night though.

Goal	Situation	Why It Went In	Where It Went
1	Average Play (Controlled ZE)	Beat Clean	Glove Hand
2	Odd Man Break	No Chance	Glove Hand
3	Jets Penalty Kill	Deflection	Open Net

Quick Explanations

I’m not sure what Mark Stuart was trying to do at the blue line here. Instead of the safe play, he decides to passively approach the Lightning player at the blue line and leave Buff to handle the approaching break with a “back checking” Chris Thorburn. Filpulla makes a nice move around Buff, shoots, and beats Pavelec clean.

I don’t hand out the “no chance” designation easily. Here, I just don’t think it’s fair to put any blame on Pavelec when the opponent can move the puck so quickly with ease due to a lazy back check.

This was a smart play by Hedman. He saw that Byfuglien had been drawn slightly up the ice earlier, allowing space for St. Louis to fill the hole and deflect the puck in.

Things to Watch For

The Jets are into a brief break before a heavy stretch heading into the Olympic break. They match up against the Blue Jackets at home on Saturday night, where they will try to prevent a season long 5-game losing streak. Here are a few things to watch for in that game:

Will Claude still be the coach? In all likelihood, yes he will be. But pressure is mounting. There is a small chance that he won’t be the bench boss for much longer.
What will the lineup look like? Everything was bad on Tuesday night. The typical Claude move from here is to shuffle the deck a bit, and the Jets could use it in some areas. The defensive pairings need to change, the third line needs to drop Chris Thorburn, and Eric O’Dell shouldn’t be on the fourth.
Who will start in net? I still think Al Montoya is the better goaltender, but I don’t think Pavelec had a bad game. I’m thinking Pavelec will get the start, but at the same time I feel like Montoya should.

Final Thought

With the current deep freeze Winnipeg is in, the roads that are in possibly the worst conditions ever, and the Jets failing in epic fashion, Winnipeg hasn’t been the most enjoyable place in the world to be in lately. For everyone’s sanity, something positive has to come from this team soon. Please?