Keep Nikolaj Ehlers At Right Wing

The Winnipeg Jets have discovered how effective @Nikolaj Ehlers is on the right side and they should leave him there.

At this point in the season, Ehlers’ expected goal per 60 is 0.65 (5 on 5 numbers). Also, Ehlers has mustered up two goals, five assists, an 8.3 S%, a 30 individual corsi-for (iCF) and three rebounds created. If we extrapolate those numbers and project that Ehlers plays a full season, he has the potential to muster up 23 goals, 58 assists, 351 iCF and 35 rebounds created. If Ehlers can pull that off, he will be one of the most prolific scorers for Winnipeg and would likely put to bed any trade rumours surrounding him.

Throughout the off-season, Ehlers’ name was mentioned on the TSN trade bait board and was supposedly dangled in front of teams as the Jets tried to create as much cap space as possible to retain their RFA assets (Kyle Connor, Patrik Laine, Josh Morrissey and etc).

Per our sister site, DailyFaceoff.com, Ehlers has been spending the bulk of his time alongside @Kyle Connor and @Andrew Copp on the second line. The trio was quiet against the Pittsburgh Penguins, but has been lights out over the course of the last few games. On October 12th against the Chicago Blackhawks, Ehlers and Connor assisted on Copp’s third period game-tying goal. This line has had some challenges and likely will not stick together throughout the season, but the major takeaway is how efficient Ehlers has been on the right side.

If you would like to take a look at some of the damage that Ehlers has done on the right side, take a look at the below GIF.

If you take a look at Sean Tierney (@ChartingHockey)’s 2019-20 Shot Maps, you will see that Ehlers has tallied two goals on the right side so far this season. One goal came from inside the faceoff circle and the other came from slightly beyond the circle. In addition, last season, Ehlers had recorded eight goals from the right side. In comparison, he had eight goals from the middle of the ice and five from the left side. As you can see, Ehlers seems to have more luck capitalizing on the right side of the ice and it might be a mistake to shift him back to the left side.

Some Jets fans might argue that if Ehlers has been used on the left side for the majority of his career and since he is left-handed that he would be better suited to be on the left side, but I would not make that claim. If you look through NHL rosters, you will see that there are a bunch of NHL forwards who are playing on their wrong side and have benefited from doing so. Some of the forwards that play on their wrong side include @Victor Olofsson, @Evgenii Dadonov, @Nikita Kucherov, @Sebastian Aho, @Nino Niederreiter, @Andrei Svechnikov, @Alex Ovechkin and @Kaapo Kakko. Last season, Kucherov won the Art Ross and the Hart trophies even though he played on his wrong side. Ovechkin has won multiple Maurice Rocket Richard trophies while playing on his wrong side. Olofsson is tearing it up this season with lethal shot on the right side and yet he is left handed. Aho is coming off of his first 80 plus point season and Dadonov has been on fire with four goals in his last four games. If some of the more prolific goal scorers in the game can put up crazy numbers on their wrong side, Ehlers has a chance to have similar luck.

In addition, with the Jets defensive issues, they have a relatively high expected goals against and it likely will not improve that much unless general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff makes some trades to acquire defensive help. With that being said they need to produce as many scoring chances and goals as possible. Given the need for strong offensive production from their depth forwards, it only makes sense to leave Ehlers on his right side while he is having quite a bit of success on the right.

In short, my advice to Jets head coach Paul Maurice is to leave Ehlers on the right side as long as he can continue to produce high offensive numbers. There is no risk. Keep him plugged in on the right side until he slows down.