Jets Nation Recap: Jets Win 1-0, Praise Hellebuyck! (And Some Good Defense!)

This game had “doom” written all over it.

On the road in the second game of a back to back, missing 3 of their top 9 forwards due to injury, having to put defenseman Adam Pardy at fourth line forward, and starting Connor Hellebuyck again when numbers suggest that such a move may have been foolish.

Yet somehow the Jets played a steady enough road game and got very reliable goaltending to eek out a 1-0 win over the Minnesota Wild.

Go fig.

The only offense on the night was provided by Blake Wheeler who continued to put the team on his shoulders for yet another night. The goal was more of a flubbed shot as it certainly looked like Blake wanted to put more zip on the wrist shot, but the change-up speed fooled Devan Dubnyk and perhaps that was a fitting metaphor for the game as the Jets lack of their typical heavy, physical play may have thrown the Wild off their game just enough to scratch out a win.

You would have expected the Wild who had lost their previous three games at home to come out with a little more fire and pounce on a team in Winnipeg’s position, but the Wheeler goal three minutes into the game took the crowd out of it and even though the Wild out-shot the Jets 13-9 in that first period, they never had any overly dangerous scoring chances.

It wasn’t until the final two minutes of play in the third when a Burmistrov penalty and a pulled goalie made for a precarious 6 on 4 session that the Jets managed to survive thanks to shot blocking from both the defense who limited the Wild in those final two minutes to a paltry two shots against, and by Hellebuyck who picked up his second career NHL shutout.

Hellebuyck: We think our friends over at Arctic Ice Hockey said it best. There is no way you can not go with Hellebuyck as your starting goalie even when the incumbent Pavelec is fully healthy. That Maurice started Hellebuyck in this situation (second game of back to back on the road) when he demonstrated a willingness to switch between Pavs and Hutch a season before no matter how the other played in the first game speaks volumes of his confidence in Connor and perhaps his lack thereof in Hutchinson. This was another test for the young goalie and with a little help from his defense, he passed with flying colors.

The Defense: ‘TruBuff’ was great even with Byfuglien noticeably playing less than 100% Enstrom and Myers were very efficient and while they didn’t do anything spectacular, they also didn’t cause any major issues by way of bad turnovers. Stuart and Chiarot? The less said about them, the better. They didn’t even see the ice as a defensive pair in the final ten minutes of the game. (Stuart did as part of the penalty kill which.. we have no idea why he keeps getting put there.)

Armia, Perreault & Ehlers: We’re at the point where pretty much anyone put on a line with Perreault is going to do ok. Perreault and Ehlers work well together and Armia’s strong play was a bit of an eye opener for a handful of people. Very nice work from this group in a 2nd line capacity.

The following charts are courtesy War-On-Ice.com

Shot attempts for all minutes

Shot location for all minutes: