Jets Nation Recap: A Win!! Woo Hoo!

It’s only preseason… It doesn’t mean anything…

But tonight we had goals scored at home! We had third period comeback and a win in overtime over the Ottawa Senators!

It’s only preseason… It doesn’t mean anything…

Ok fine, but a win sure feels a heck of a lot better than what we had the first four games.

Both the Jets and Sens went with a more NHL based lineup for their teams as both teams are past the evaluation part of preseason and now focused more on getting ready for the regular season, so it was a bit discouraging when the Sens jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first period with a Milan Michalek goal and a 3-0 lead after two periods with goals from Zack Smith and Jean-Gabriel Pageau.

Still though, there were some encouraging signs from the Jets in the first two periods as they managed to out-shoot the Sens through two (23-20) and the possession numbers were climbing in the Jets favor (more on that in the charts) as the game went on.

And given that it was the first game for the likes of Andrew Ladd and Bryan Little, perhaps this loss wouldn’t seem as bad as it felt watching the game.

Then the third period happened.

Blake Wheeler got his first of the preseason mere seconds into the period after tipping in a Andrew Ladd wrist shot.

15 minutes later after having a mostly bland effort of a game, Nik Ehlers generated some offense by throwing the puck towards the net where a hard-charging Drew Stafford deflected the puck in with either his skates or a well placed stick.

With less than a minute left in the game and the goalie pulled, Tyler Myers flung the puck from the point which met up with the tip of Andrew Ladd’s stick and got past Sens goalie Andrew Hammond to tie the game up.

Mark Scheifele capped the comeback night off with a wrist shot coming down the wing on a two on one mere moments after he had fired a puck wide on a previous scoring chance.

Again, “It’s only preseason^TM“ but it’s encouraging to see the key players step up and score goals when behind in a game.

Petan Pretty Good: The talk before the preseason was how Nik Ehlers was all but a lock for the main roster but it turns out the other Nic has been stealing the show as Nic Petan continued his strong play with more hustle and generating a couple of good scoring chances. If he hasn’t outright won a spot on the roster to start the season, he should be mighty close.

Reunited And It Feels So Good: We get that the whole idea of preseason hockey is to blend the lines a bit, see who gels with who and so on and see if you can’t get a little chemistry between players, but when it comes to the line of Ladd, Little and Wheeler maybe it’s just best to leave things be. After having been split up for the first two periods, Paul Maurice put them together in the third period and they were instant offense for the club.

Pavs Was Pavs: Ondrej Pavelec stopped 22 of 25 and the three goals he allowed were more of the same in terms of not being exactly his fault, but also goals he could have been better on. The first two goals you can argue were deflected, the second goal against especially could have been the result of too many bodies in front. All that said though, his positioning could be a bit better and he still has that annoying habit of making himself smaller in net at times. Just more of the same from Pavelec really.

New feature time where we ask on Twitter what you thought…

Individual scoring chances (iSC), shot attempt differential (Corsi +/-), non-blocked shot attempt differential (Fen +/-), and offensive zone face off as percentage of all non-neutral zone face-offs:

Shot attempt chart for all minutes:

Nothing to throw a parade over, but winning is more enjoyable than the other thing right?