Game 5 vs. Dallas: Pavelec and Entries

10 years ago

The Jets kicked off a 6 game home stand Friday night against the Dallas Stars, but unfortunately made an appearance that is becoming much too familiar to fans. When we asked for more consistency this off-season, this isn’t exactly what we had in mind.

Zone Entry Data

5 vs 5	Player	# of successful entries	Shots (From Entries)	Shots/Entry	Controlled Entries	Shots (Controlled Entries)	% With Control	% That Fail
5	Stuart	1	0	0.00	0	0	0%	N/A
8	Trouba	1	1	1.00	1	1	100%	50.0%
9	Kane	10	5	0.50	6	5	60%	0.0%
12	Jokinen	7	6	0.86	3	2	43%	0.0%
15	Halischuk	1	2	2.00	0	0	0%	N/A
16	Ladd	5	1	0.20	2	0	40%	0.0%
17	Wright	3	1	0.33	1	0	33%	50.0%
18	Little	5	0	0.00	2	0	40%	0.0%
19	Slater	3	0	0.00	0	0	0%	N/A
24	Clitsome	2	3	1.50	0	0	0%	N/A
26	Wheeler	7	4	0.57	4	4	57%	0.0%
27	Tangradi	2	1	0.50	1	1	50%	0.0%
33	Byfuglien	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
39	Enstrom	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	100.0%
40	Setoguchi	2	0	0.00	1	0	50%	0.0%
44	Bogosian	5	0	0.00	0	0	0%	N/A
55	Scheifele	2	1	0.50	1	1	50%	50.0%
67	Frolik	3	2	0.67	2	1	67%	50.0%
	TEAM	59	27	0.46	24	15	41%	20.0%
	OPP	54	27	0.50	24	20	44%	27.3%
	OZF	22	10	0.45
	DZF	10	3	0.30

Observations

Interrupt me if you head this before, but Evander Kane is a good player on a mediocre, if not bad, team. Almost every game he is the guy leading the entries and he makes great use of them. Tonight was no exception.
Olli Jokinen had a rather efficient game again. Admittedly, I’m not sure how much of that came once Evander Kane was moved down to play with him, but he has been much better suited this year in a third line role.
Ladd and Little were once again rather ineffective with their entries. I feel like I repeat myself a lot in these things…
Blake Wheeler was quite effective (now there’s a change). He made it more of a mission to start carrying the puck into the zone against the Stars, and it paid off. He created more chances, got more shots on net, and ended up even scoring a goal.
The Jets defense didn’t contribute much with their dump-ins. Heck, Byfuglien and Enstrom didn’t even have any at even strength. Could this potentially be a message from Noel to pay more attention to defense?
I’m hesitant to read too much into these stats as a whole. After the first period it was pretty clear that the Stars took their foot off the gas, and were being much less aggressive on the puck. Although the success might be nice for a few guys confidence, it needs to be taken with the knowledge that the Stars were likely saving themselves for tomorrow night.

Pavelec Performance

Well, looks like Pavelec is about ready to come back down to Earth. You just had to know that Pav was going to Pav. The Jets were out chanced (as per usual) in the first period, but in my opinion the fault for that 3-0 deficit falls greatly on Ondrej. Here’s why:

Goal	Situation	Reason It Went In	Where It Went
1	Jets Penalty Kill	Beat Clean (Pavelec Fault)	Five Hole
2	Average Breakout (Controlled ZE)	Beat Clean (Pavelec Fault)	Glove Hand
3	Sustained Pressure	Rebound	Right Pad
4	Jets Penalty Kill	Beat Clean (Pavelec Fault)	Blocker

Quick Explanations

I’m not sure what Pavelec was doing on this play. After the Jets penalty killers get absolutely sucked into Tyler Seguin, Alex Chiasson cuts with the puck just above the goal line to the front of the net. Rather than staying strong and focusing on keeping the puck out, Pavelec tries to pounce on it, leaving himself vulnerable and letting Chiasson slide it easily five hole. Had Pavelec played this smarter and the puck gone in, it would be on the penalty killers. But he didn’t, so he takes the blame.

Pretty simple. Slap shot that straight up beats Pavelec. It’s his fault. This kind of commentary really annoys me though. No Mr. Engblom, the puck was not invisible. Ondrej Pavelec is an NHL goaltender. Tyler Seguin is no Zdeno Chara. It’s a goal that may have been a regular occurrence in the 80’s, but in todays NHL that needs to be stopped. Even if it was deflected, from that far out it needs to be stopped.

This is terrible rebound control. The puck comes from a long distance and hits Pavelec right in the glove with minimal traffic in front. Yet he manages to drop it, quite literally serving it up on a plate for Jamie Benn who makes a very simple move to put it in. That’s all on Pav too.

Let’s just make it 4 for 4 on Pavelec in this game. The puck comes out from behind the net right to Tyler Seguin, who is standing alone beside the dot. There is no traffic at all between Pavelec and Seguin. Tyler takes almost a full second to settle the puck, wind up, and fire it. Pavelec doesn’t challenge the shooter enough and is beat clean short side. The angle could have been taken away if Pavelec was more aggressive, but he wasn’t and the puck ends up in the net.

Things To Watch For

The Jets host the Devils on Sunday night, where they will be looking to end what has quickly become a three game losing streak. If they can play more like they did in the third all game against the Devils (I’m not counting on it, the score had a major effect on that), they will have a good chance of ending it. Here are some other things to look for going into that game:

Midway through the game Claude Noel finally put Trouba and Bogosian back together. Will it stay that way? I surely hope so.
Is Claude Noel finally on the “hot seat”? Gary Lawless refuses to admit that he probably is, but after some questionable lineup choices and decision making this year he has to be feeling some pressure. Following Chevy’s extension this offseason, Claude has become the fall man – especially considering it’s pretty much impossible to move any of the big names.
Will Wheeler keep on rolling? Blake Wheeler finally put a puck in the net. Albeit the game was out of hand and he wasn’t with his usual mates when it happened, but a goal is a goal for the struggling forward. For his sake, you have to hope it sparks something.

Final Thought

Al Montoya should have started this game. Pavelec is absolutely horrible on the second game of back to backs and we saw it once again Friday night. Regardless of what had happened already this week, Claude Noel should have put his back up in the net. He didn’t and I am officially off of his bandwagon. #NoelWatch has officially started for me.