The Jets Day After: Focusing On The Individuals

Just like the Winnipeg Jets have a quick turnaround between games and won’t have much time to dwell on their win over the Chicago Blackhawks, I’m not going to spend too much time breaking down the overtime win because quite honestly as accurately pointed out by Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun, it was a poorly played knockoff of a preseason game. Chicago is not deep and was trying to figure out how not to lose which is usually what the Jets do nightly so to see someone else in the same situation probably threw them off a bit as well.

“You’re trying not to lose? We’re trying not to lose too!”

It was kind of a poorly played game all around so instead of dwelling on any of that, I want to focus on a handful of players and just sum up their night in a few words each…

I’m trying to figure out if I’ve liked what I am seeing based on the fact that I had super low expectations of him based on how bad the trade was (and make no mistake, it’s still a bad trade for reasons I’ll get into next week), or if he really is actually a capable top four defenseman.

He and @Carl Dahlstrom played pretty well against the Toews/DeBrincat/Caggiula line and of course Pionk had a couple more examples of strong play in the offensive end and picks up an assist on the @Nikolaj Ehlers goal giving him five points already this season.

He’s on pace for 27 goals and 41 points in a full 82 game season.

I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin…

On the opposite end of the defensive scale is Bitetto who with @Dmitry Kulikov were just flat out bad against the Strome/Shaw/Kane line. It was a match-up the Hawks clearly exploited all night and the Jets are lucky they didn’t get burned by it more. What’s even more puzzling is the pairing were thrown out for the penalty kill over @Josh Morrissey and @Tucker Poolman which may explain why the Hawks were 1 for 2 on the power play and looked dangerous both times they had the man advantage.

Is Paul Maurice just trying to give away goals?

Don’t let the nice set up on the overtime winner (that even though was a heck of a shot by @Mark Scheifele, was a very make-able stop for @Robin Lehner) overshadow the fact that Blake had a very rough night with the puck, with turnovers and with positioning.

But nice assist though.

Don’t let the lack of any points overshadow the fact that Patrik had a pretty good game with and without the puck. Not to throw all the ‘blame’ at Wheeler, but whatever issues the top line had – especially against Toews/DeBrincat/Caggiula –  wasn’t on Laine.

His line of himself, @Gabriel Bourque and @Mark Letestu wasn’t actually half bad last night. They had some strange numbers. They had the highest 5v5 xGF% of any of the four Jets forward lines with 85.94% (0.39 xGF to 0.06 xGA) but also gave up three scoring chances which was second to the Jets top line which game up four, only Lowry’s line gave up almost as many in half the ice time.

Even though things were slightly better for the Lowry line tonight, a return of @Bryan Little to third line duty should bump @Jack Roslovic or @Mason Appleton to the fourth line and knock Letestu out of the lineup completely and make that fourth line better.

Or Paul Maurice can just keep running this line hoping for better. I think we know which way he’ll go.

Continues to be amazing.

I still feel like that second line of Ehlers with @Andrew Copp and @Kyle Connor is coming along and doing more good work than negative. The three of them had eight shots on goal during five on five play which was by far the most of any of the Jets forward lines in the game. Their xGF as a trio was 0.68 and while granted a lot of that work was done against @Brent Seabrook and @Olli Maatta – two players who’s laps around the rink can be timed with a sundial – it should still make Jets fans sit up and take notice on how good the second line can be.

Ya know, it’s not that I didn’t think Hellebuyck was good. I’d like to point out that a few weeks ago we asked the question of if he could have a better save percentage than .915 this season and out of the four of us who answered, I was the only one to say yes he would.

I just didn’t want to hear him say that he thought he was fine in goal in an obviously bad game and actually just be fine in goal.

He’s been more than fine over the last three games. He’s been stellar. 27 saves last night, .937 save percentage, and a few times he kept the game from getting much worse.

I’ll shut my mouth now.