Playoff Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down: It Wasn’t All Bad

With the playoffs in the air it’s time to bring back my favourite segment from last year’s Stanley Cup run.  We will be doing a the thumbs up, thumbs down after every game which will recap some of the highs and lows from the previous night. Jets fans likely have a bad taste in their mouth from the loss last night, but there was definitely some good aspects as well. Let’s break it all down.

Thumbs up to the atmosphere in Winnipeg all day. The air felt different in the city despite the Jets struggling over the past few weeks. It was as if a switch was flipped city-wide and the Jets were the talk of the entire province. Seeing the insane crowds in and out of Bell MTS Place showed how much this city truly loves the Jets. Regardless of what happens during the next few weeks, playoff hockey will always unite the people of Winnipeg.

Thumbs down to the needless penalties. Running over the opposing goalie and needing to kill off a penalty isn’t the best way to start a series, but that’s exactly what Winnipeg did. Scheifele tried to come in with speed and didn’t judge the gap correctly. This was followed by two more Jets’ penalties in a row that were completely unnecessary. The penalty kill was really good, but it’s not a great plan to keep taking bad penalties.

Thumbs up to Laine’s shot. I discussed in the X-Factor post on Laine that he might get going again in this series. He’s been great against the Blues in the past and he was great in this one. He scored the first goal of the series with a phenomenal shot and he looked dangerous all game. It’s a great sign for Winnipeg if Laine can keep it going.

Thumbs down to the third period. All was going well in the first two periods as the Jets controlled majority of the play and were up by a goal. Things went awry in the third period as the Jets reverted back to their play of the last several months. They had absolutely no speed through the neutral zone and couldn’t get any time in the offensive end. St. Louis took advantage and scored both the tying and the game winning goal to close out the game. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, but the Jets struggled to get out of their own zone and were caught standing still in neutral ice. They kept dumping the puck in and going for a line change without gaining any pressure which allowed St. Louis to continually be on the offensive.

Thumbs up to Tyler Myers. Myers has been getting a lot of flak this season for his questionable breakouts and risky behaviour. He definitely cleaned up his act in this game as he played well from start to finish. He made smart passes and didn’t pinch too often. The physicality was way up for Myers who also had some big hits in game one. That’s the exact type of performance that is needed from Myers if the Jets are going to be successful.

Thumbs down to the Jets’ offense. To be fair, Binnington played a great game and saved way more shots than he should have but there was still problems with Winnipeg’s offense. The main issue is that Winnipeg was content to take shots from the outside and couldn’t get any opportunities from in close.

You can see by the above chart that Winnipeg got chances from the higher area of the slot, but virtually nothing around the net. If the Jets are going to be successful, they will need to score the ugly goals and generate offense from closer to the crease.

Even though the Jets lost, their play in the first half of the game is reason for optimism. We will have to wait and see which Jets team comes to play in game number two.