Game 8 vs. St Louis: Pavelec and Entries

10 years ago

The Jets managed to steal a win from a tough Blues squad last night to get themselves back to .500 on the season. Let’s take a look at the zone entry stats and evaluate how Pavelec did in this surprising win.

Zone Entries

5 vs 5	Player	# of successful entries	Shots (From Entries)	Shots/Entry	Controlled Entries	Shots (Controlled Entries)	% With Control	% That Fail
5	Stuart	0	0	N/A	0	0	N/A	N/A
8	Trouba	2	2	1.00	2	2	100%	0.0%
9	Kane	10	5	0.50	7	5	70%	0.0%
12	Jokinen	1	0	0.00	1	0	100%	0.0%
14	Peluso	4	1	0.25	3	1	75%	0.0%
15	Halischuk	5	3	0.60	2	1	40%	0.0%
16	Ladd	4	3	0.75	3	3	75%	25.0%
17	Wright	5	1	0.20	0	0	0%	100.0%
18	Little	10	3	0.30	6	2	60%	14.3%
19	Slater	2	1	0.50	1	1	50%	0.0%
24	Clitsome	3	1	0.33	1	1	33%	0.0%
26	Wheeler	5	4	0.80	5	4	100%	28.6%
28	Cormier	1	0	0.00	1	0	100%	50.0%
33	Byfuglien	3	1	0.33	2	0	67%	0.0%
39	Enstrom	1	0	0.00	1	0	100%	0.0%
44	Bogosian	6	4	0.67	2	2	33%	0.0%
55	Scheifele	5	3	0.60	4	2	80%	0.0%
67	Frolik	6	3	0.50	3	3	50%	25.0%
	TEAM	73	35	0.48	44	27	60%	13.7%
	OPP	76	34	0.45	36	23	47%	16.3%
	OZF	19	5	0.26
	DZF	12	2	0.17

Observations

Blake Wheeler stopped dumping the puck in, and look at what happened! I don’t know if this is a by-product from playing alongside Evander Kane, but you have to like his increase in production. Bryan Little may not have had the most efficient of games, but Kane and Wheeler together picked up the slack for the most part.
Trouba, despite leaving early due that scary headfirst wipe out and playing with Stuart, was actually able to create a bit of offense on the night. I’ve noticed that in games he’s feeling comfortable in, he’s quite skilled at generating shots off of the rush. He’s going to be out for at least 2-3 weeks though, so the Jets are going to have to find that elsewhere.
Mark Stuart is pretty useless on offense.
Ladd, Frolik and Scheifele were both able to generate shots from their entries, but as you’ll see in my upcoming chances article, they weren’t exactly effective shots. Nonetheless, being able to generate shots is a positive, and things should get better if they can keep up that efficiency as a line.
I have a hard time defining Anthony Peluso as just a “goon”. He does have some skill, and I greatly prefer him to Chris Thorburn. I think he should be in the lineup a bit more often.
Overall, I’m impressed with the percentage of entries the Jets were able to create with control. The Blues aren’t exactly an easy team to go up against, but they were able to penetrate the blue line with solid efficiency. One thing that did bother me, though, was how often they followed the entry with poor shots from a distance. Not until late in the game did the Jets start really driving towards the net, and they got lucky with a couple poor bounces off of Elliot.

Pavelec Performance

I thought Pavelec had an overall shaky night. He was out of position often in the first period, and was bailed out by a LOT of posts. Credit where credit is due though, as despite the fact that he spent a lot of the time in the shootout on his stomach, he made enough stops to earn the Jets a win. Here’s my breakdown of the goals:

Goal	Situation	Reason It Went In	Where It Went
1	Turnover	Beat Clean (Defense At Fault)	Glove Hand
2	Turnover	Beat Clean (Pavelec At Fault)	Blocker
3	Sustained Pressure	Rebound	Left Pad

Quick Explanations:

This one isn’t Pav’s fault. First, Clitsome just falls apart. Literally. Following the turnover though, all five Jets get caught watching the puck allowing David Backes to walk in front of Jim Slater down the middle of the ice, and easily bury the puck by Ondrej.

This one I’m not forgiving Pavelec for. Yes, Trouba is guilty of a horrible turnover. That being said, at some point your goalie has to bail you out. Well, at least the good ones do. Steen lets a relatively weak wrister from just above the dot, with no traffic, and it beats Pav. He has to make that save.

That’s a horrible rebound to give up. Pavelec doesn’t square up to the original shooter, therefore leaving himself unable to control the rebound at all. It goes right to Steen who slides it into the net. Better positioning likely prevents this goal.

Things To Watch For

The Jets play Nashville Sunday night in their first matchup against new division rivals. Here are a few things to watch for as the Jets try, once again, to move above .500:

How will the defense look? Originally, I was really looking forward to the Trouba/Jones matchup and storyline that was going to come along with this game. Thankfully, after his fall it looks like Trouba is alright and will only miss a couple weeks with a neck strain. Adam Pardy was called up from the Ice Caps this afternoon, but it is still unknown is either he or Paul Postma will draw in against the Preds. I would assume Postma would get the call, but who knows with Noel Logic?
Will Setoguchi draw back in? I’m not exactly sure as to why Setoguchi felt Noel’s wrath in place of Blake Wheeler Friday night, but it seemed to work as Wheels had one of his better games of the year. Following a win it’ll be interesting to see if Claude changes things at all.
What is this penalty kill? The Jets were perfect again on the PK Friday night. How long can they keep this up?

Final Thought

Why the heck was Anthony Peluso called upon in the shootout before Mark Scheifele? Serious question here folks. Someone please explain this to me.