#JNAirMail: Part Two… The Regulars Get Their Turn

Earlier today we let out new recruits chime in on our weekly questions as a way to introduce them to all of you, but we couldn’t let them have all the fun could we?

Here is part two of our AirMail feature where the regulars – people here – answer those same questions the new people answered this morning…

Sean: Comrie is in danger of falling down the depth chart at this point. He has been good but not great this year, and I think still far from an NHL option at this point. In stretches with the Moose I’d even look to Berdin as having out performed Comrie. Comrie is still young and has time to develop, but he is running out of time with this organization.

Cassie: Comrie is good, but needs to improve. At 23 he should be settling into his game better and he has seemed to take a step back. If he can improve his numbers with better starts, then I can see him being the backup of the future. Do I think he’ll be a starter? Probably not.

Kyle: There’s still plenty of time for Comrie to make his mark with the organization. Brossoit has been solid this year, but who knows what the future holds. Goaltending is such a difficult position to assess because of the high turnover and inconsistencies between seasons. Maybe Comrie gets a shot next season, maybe not for another few years. Who knows…

Art: I’m with Sean O, Mikhail Berdin has been really impressive in the few games I’ve seen him with the Moose and I do wonder if he’s passed a few depth charts within the Jets organization. Brossoit only has that one year deal and I think that was by design to give Comrie one more year in the AHL before becoming Hellebuyck’s backup in 2019-20, but at this rate the competition will be wide open come training camp. Comrie certainly isn’t the lock he seemed to be a few years ago when a handful of us wondered if he was the true future of Jets goaltending and not Helle.

Sean: I do think the expansion draft scares the Jets some. That being said, isn’t that a good problem to have? I expect Cheveldayoff will try and deal his way out of it as he did with the Vegas expansion draft. Whether that will work or the asking price will be too high remains to be seen.

Cassie: I think it’ll play out the same way as it did with Vegas. Chevy will probably make a move to keep all the players in place and go from there. As for Arizona moving, I think it’s probably the smartest move, especially with the rumors that they might get relocated to Houston. That would be the most logical team to move and relocate at this time.

Kyle: In Chevy we trust. He will be fine during the expansion draft just like he was during the Vegas draft. Whether he makes an external deal with Seattle, or an internal deal like he did with Enstrom, there will be something done to help ease the pain of losing someone. Regardless, most people forget that every team has to lose a player. No matter what deals are made, a player still has to be chosen. You can’t escape the expansion draft, that’s not how it works.

Art: It’s waaaaaaaayyyyyyy too early to think about who the Jets may have to give up come the summer of June 2021 for my liking. Here’s my theory on your question though: teams don’t lose a “key player” unless they make a critical error in judgment (Hello Panthers and Jonathan Marchessault) or they give up a player who is an underutilized spare part that SURPRISE turns out to be great (looking at you Columbus and William Karlsson) and if Kevin Cheveldayoff is still the GM at that time, I don’t see the Jets making that kind of mistake.

As for Arizona to the Central. I think it’s a boring solution to a problem that could have been solved a little more creatively which is to say the NHL completely NHL’ed the heck out of the division realignment question. But part of me does wonder if Arizona will even be in Arizona in three years… Houston is very interested in the NHL it seems.

Cassie: I think Ehlers or Lowry can keep up with Laine. As far as my skill goes? I’m absolute garbage at FPS games so I know he’d beat me. I’d love to give it a shot though. Maybe he’d be down to play Smash instead? That I might have a chance in.

Kyle: Fortnite is not my forte, although I’m not too bad at some other FPS. I’m with Josh, I would totally take Laine on in chel, but he’s got me beat in Fortnite. I feel like there’s some pretty good gamers on the Jets, Connor or Morrissey would be my picks to give Laine a run for his money.

Art: Ehlers probably knows Laine’s Fortnite habits better than anyone so he’s got a shot, but at the same time I can’t see them not squading up. As far as taking him on, I’m still very much a Fortnite noob that has no concept of how to build and thus he’d take me out easily.

Although Overwatch would be another story.. I think I could take him 1 v 1 in that before we team up and help form the next great Overwatch League team.

Sean O: +/- is an outdated stat these days. There are too many factors in the game that affect it that has nothing to do with many players on the ice. Torey Krug complained about the stat a couple years ago when he estimated he was on the ice for 7 empty net goals against. Seems like a rare case, but I think the point remains

Cassie: +/- is such a terrible stat, but in some circumstances it can be utilized. If you have a 7-2 game and someone is -7 on the night, maybe it’s worth digging deeper. It isn’t a end all to be all type of stat, but it can be utilized in some capacity still, just as an ancillary type of stat. I don’t think the team focuses on it too much though. I’m sure it gets brought up with other things though.

Kyle: There is definitely a time and place for +/- in hockey. Most of the advanced stats community disregarded +/- because of its lack of predictability. That means that past +/- really has no correlation to future +/-. Corsi does a better job of predicting future success which is why most people stopped using +/-. However, as Cassie mentioned, +/- can and should be used as a descriptive stat meaning that it describes how a game went more so than how future games will go. So if a player is -3 in a game, it should be looked at further. Why were goals going in when he was on the ice? Were they his fault, or was it just bad luck? There’s my little rant on +/-. I believe the Jets know all these things and they are likely way further into advanced stats than people know. There’s so much that goes on behind the scenes that we have no idea about.

Art: I don’t even pay attention to +/- any more. There are so many other great stats and indicators of how well (or not) a player is doing on the ice and without the puck that +/- to me seems like such a fossil of a stat now.