Winnipeg Jets under and over performers in 19 games

The season is nineteen games in and the Winnipeg Jets have been struggling to be as good as last season.

One area where the Jets have not been as good has been in the Jets’ control of shot attempts. As expected with human nature some players have been better than previous seasons, while others have been worse.

We will look at each of the Jets skaters the last two seasons and see how they are performing relative to those years.

We took the rates in shot attempts per minute of ice time (after adjusting for score-effects) to estimate the expected Corsi for each player given their ice time. We then compared each expected number to their actual.

In terms to how each forward has performed in the past, the trio of Adam Lowry, Alexander Burmistrov, and Andrew Ladd have been the worst Jets. All three have previously carried strong shot differential numbers, but Ladd has been middling while Lowry and Burmistrov have struggled more than most of the Jets.

Some of this is expected. Both Burmistrov and Lowry were used in a sheltered scoring role previously, but have moved as more defensive specialists.

Mark Scheifele, Mathieu Perreault, and Blake Wheeler have been the Jets top performers relative to their past performance. Scheifele had a strong showing by shot metrics last year, although he struggled extensively the year prior. Perreault has always been a strong performer; despite being one of the Jets’ best shot metrics player last season, Perreault’s 2014-2015 season was actually below his norm.

In terms of change with usage, Scheifele (and Nikolaj Ehlers) has been the major benefactors in Lowry and Burmistrov’s defensive usage.

The three Jets obviously struggling have been Ben Chiarot, Jacob Trouba, and Tyler Myers.

Chiarot looked good last season although there were many concerned how much of that was just being carried by Dustin Byfuglien; it is looking more and more like Chiarot is more of a depth defender than a regular unless paired with an elite defender like Big Buff. Trouba was without a sophomore slump last year, but it seems to be hitting him this year. Myers, who did not perform well in shot metrics in the first place, has also been struggling just to not be deepest in the red.

The two defenders exceeding expectations the most has been Tobias Enstrom and Byfuglien. This is not that surprising. Byfuglien spent much of the last two seasons as a forward, where he tends to perform very poorly compared to his minutes being a defender. In addition, these are the two best defenders the Jets have and normally play apart but were able to play together.

The one thing we should note that this is relative to past performance. Players like Drew Stafford, Chris Thorburn, and Mark Stuart are not the strongest players but have played as they typically played with the Jets under the circumstances.

Players like Burmistrov, Lowry, and Trouba hurt because they are usually the ones to pick up the slack for the Jets weaker skaters but haven’t. This is one area where the Jets will have to improve in the future.