Going into the Jets contest with the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night, there was a lot of talk – or at least an overall feeling – about how ugly the game could be. The vaunted 7-1-0 Oilers with @James Neal remembering how to score almost at will, @Leon Draisaitl fresh off his 50 goal season last year and then of course there was @Connor McDavid all up against THIS Jets defense? To hear some people talk, it was as if double digit goal totals from the Oilers was expected.

Only THAT Jets defense shut them down for the most part. They had help of course. The line of @Adam Lowry, @Andrew Copp and @Jack Roslovic did some great work against the Oilers top line and @Connor Hellebuyck was pretty good in a 29 save shutout.

Between this game and the effort against the New York Islanders last Thursday, there are reasons to be encouraged if you’re a Jets fan. There is still lots to work on, but to borrow a bit of a phrase from Paul Maurice, there was a lot to like from different parts of that game.

One of the things that some of the advanced numbers had been showing over the last couple of weeks was that the Jets were doing pretty good in terms of slowing opposing teams up at their blue line and preventing not just odd-man rushes, but clean zone entries overall. The problem was that once an opposing team was set up in the Winnipeg end of the ice, the Jets had difficulty with taking away second chance opportunists created from missed shots or rebounds, committed multiple turnovers in their own end and were generally a mess in terms of trying to get out of their own end with actual control of the puck.

On top of all that, it was generally open-season for shots in the high-danger slot area in front of the Winnipeg goal. Last night was a slightly different story.

The Oilers still got to that slot area, but not as much as they probably would have liked. The Jets were quick to pucks, did a good job of clogging up the middle and not only got to rebounds and loose pucks, but maybe biggest of all were maybe “pinned down” in their own zone for more than 30 seconds of play all of two times the entire game. The Oilers didn’t get much last night and what they did get was from manageable distances for Hellebuyck.

A bit of a rant if I may: I’m starting to think nothing will ever please some of you Jets fans.

Connor Hellebuyck makes 23 stops out of 25 shots faced in a 2-1 loss to the Islanders and that’s not good enough for some of you. Despite making three or four critical stops that kept the Jets in the game against New York, the fact he couldn’t stop them all was reason enough to tsk tsk the goaltending performance.

Last night he makes 28 stops and two more in the shootout – against McDavid and @Ryan Nugent-Hopkins no less – and that still was’t good enough for some of you.

11% of you need a stern talking to. That’s around 22 people who thought someone in the game was better than Hellebuyck, yet funny enough only one person suggested another name and it was for @Kyle Connor who had one shot on goal and missed the net entirely a handful more times than anyone would care to admit.

If one puck had gotten past Hellebuyck the story today I am certain would have been “well he just didn’t make the big save.” and as it is more than a few people suggested that he wasn’t really “tested” in the game or even dare suggested that he had a fairly easy night.

I just can’t with you people… As someone who has no issues on calling out Hellebuyck when he’s on his BS, it’s insane to me to try and devalue his work from last night. Would it have been better if all 28 saves were of the flashy windmill glove type? Is this figure skating where we are now judging things based on difficulty? A goalie is paid to stop pucks. Hellebuyck stopped every single one he faced last night. How much better can it get?

It’s ok to admit when our starting goalie has a good game.

Part of that improved defensive effort we saw last night carried over to the penalty kill which was a perfect 2 for 2.

Hey, its not much, but they kept the league’s best power play that was converting at almost a 50% rate off the board. And it wasn’t that they were kept off the board, the Oilers power play really wasn’t given much to work with in their two chances. Winnipeg made zone entries for them an arduous task and there were virtually no second chances off of rebounds.

The Jets still sport the worst penalty kill rate in the league, but last night was a step in the right direction. If they Jets can get back to a “league average” PK and remain as disciplined as they have been (only two penalties taken last night) this club will be in a lot better spot than they have been the last week or so.