Six thoughts 10/24/11 Jets 1-2 Rangers

The Winnipeg Jets coming off an impressive win at home where they finally broke through offensively out-shot, out-chanced and out-everythinged the New York Rangers Monday night but couldn’t seem to keep the scoring going. They fell 2-1.

This guy beat the Jets? Really?

-When you outshoot your opponent 28-17, and 24-13 at even strength, usually the only way you lose is if your opponent gets a lucky goal. That’s exactly what happened on the Ryan Callahan game winner. Zach Bogosian was a little too casual in protecting against Ruslan Fedotenko in front, and the puck could not have banked in more perfectly off of his skate to put the Rangers up 2-1. To further add insult, that penalty came after a shift that was being dominated by Winnipeg. They had four shot attempts in just under 30 seconds before Fedotenko drew a little space, cut to the net in front of Mason, and got taken down.

-Winnipeg got just a single powerplay Monday night, and it was abbreviated by Nik Antropov’s aggressive play which drew a call mid-advantage, giving the Jets a total of just 43 seconds of time with the extra man. They didn’t score, but they managed to record a shot. Given how much they were pressuring the Rangers at evens, I’m surprised they didn’t get the benefit of a few more calls, but nothing really stood out, particularly late. Why Randy Jones bugged the official on the one he took after he chopped off Brian Boyle’s ankles is beyond me.

-Antropov’s goal was pretty random. I don’t think that Martin Biron was expecting the shot. A pretty innocuous play that had a puck in a scrum poked free to Antropov. Somehow, the official scorers found a way to credit two Jets with the assists on that play.

-George Ays at Tracking the Rangers had the scoring chances at 16-9 for the Jets, and 5-1 for Winnipeg in the third period. Again, this is a game that the Jets were unlucky to win. No dis-respect to the Rangers, however, who are finishing up a nightmare 7-game road trip that spanned four different countries and somehow ended up with a 3-2-2 record. That would be acceptable even if they didn’t start the season in Europe.

-Good, finally, was Brian Little, and finally a forward led the team in shot attempts (although, granted, him and Dustin Byfuglien both had 9). Little was also a +11 Corsi, which led the forwards. Byfuglien and Tobias Enstrom sucked up minutes and therefore led the team in Corsi tonight with +16 and +18 ratings.

-Chris Mason looked good. Neither goal his fault. He gets tagged with the loss. This is not a recording, but it’s become a recurring theme of Jets goaltenders. Even when the team does well, somehow they find a way to lose hockey games. He looked an eensie-bit casual on the Fedotenko goal, which was a re-directed pass and thus pretty slow moving towards the net, but there was some good traffic created. The winning goal, again, was a total fluke.