TALKING POINTS

• Is being out-shot 48-19 an ideal way to win a hockey game? Nope. But when you look at some of the advanced metrics of this game, the measured “high danger scoring chances” were only at a 14-10 advantage for Nashville – again not completely ideal, but it does play into what exactly the Jets are looking to do on defensive side of things. They want those high danger chances to be limited on their end of the ice and have just as many (ideally more) on the offensive end, so to that degree the Jets got what they wanted out of the game tonight, but I’m sure they’d like to tighten things up overall.
• On top of allowing so many shots, the Jets were poor in the face-off circle, they didn’t win very many 50-50 puck battles most of the night, they were sloppy when trying to exit out of their own zone. The good news from all of that is the Jets won tonight while still having LOTS of room for improvement. They won tonight and will be able to go over some game film on Saturday and make some adjustments.
• I feel like the week long lay off has a bit of blame in this as well. The Jets came out a bit tentative and didn’t really skate all that well to start. It wasn’t until midway through the second – pretty much right after Stastny’s goal that made it 2-0 – that the Jets started owning the puck a little more… At least until the end of the second period. In the third it was back to the same story as the first period.
• What more can be said about Connor Hellebuyck? He was a stud tonight. I’ve ranted on like a broken record that the Jets never seem to panic ever in a game – even one like this where they were swarmed by the opposition – but so much of that has to do with Hellebuyck, how he carries himself in goal and the stops he’s making.
• Not a single Predators penalty called in the game tonight… That’s funny because I coulda swore I saw Nashville execute a handful of pick plays in the offensive end and I thought those were clear cut cases of interference.. But what do I know?
• Speaking of interference, that goalie interference call on Blake Wheeler in the second period was the softest goalie interference call I’ve ever seen. Scheifele’s goal to make it 3-0 right after that penalty was killed was a sweet little bit of poetic hockey justice.

CHARTS N STUFF

Matchups are limited to 5-on-5 situations. Tile size is scaled by Time On Ice and colour is scaled by adjusted Expected Goals differential. Blue represents a home team advantage and red represents a road team advantage.

PLAYERS OF THE GAME

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