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No truer words were spoken this season about the Winnipeg Jets than what Claude Noel said about halfway through his post game comments. Were it not for the player now known as ‘Sniper’, Chris Thorburn, the Jets would have been blanked at home by the lowly Islanders, a team many Jets fans consider them superior too. It did not look that way on Tuesday night at the MTS Centre.
A game recap detailing the highs and lows from the notes I took last night seems almost irrelevant. Why re-hash what doesn’t work?
One interesting issue I noticed, and I was not alone in my observations when discussed amongst fellow scribes in the press box, was that the Jets lack any real presence from the front of the opposition goalie through the slot. It’s the best spot for scoring opportunities and the Jets seem almost afraid of going to the space.
At one point during the first period, the first line of Little Ladd and Wheeler were deep in the Islanders zone. Ladd and Wheeler were battling for the puck down low and Little was circling. Ladd comes up with the puck and moves to the side to make a pass out but by this time Little had gone deep to the far side of the net and Ladd had no one to pass the puck too.
Little wasn’t going down to cycle the puck as the Jets have an almost non-existent cycle game he was going to help his mates, a noble and good intention. The result was that he hurt his team more because he took himself so far out of position and left his captain with no options. There was no player in the slot, no options to pass and subsequently no scoring chances. I asked Tanner Glass about the action in front of the net, or lack thereof and he seemed to have a different view, you can see his response below.
When Noel commented “I didn’t think we put enough pucks on the net,” during his press conference he was right. The Jets out shot the Isles by 36-23 but many of those shots may have been favourable stats from the home crew and less than half were true quality shots. There were few opportunities to get position in front and try and shovel the puck in the net. Was it timing or was it vision?
When teams are struggling, players, like any other profession or person, try to do too much and show signs of over-thinking their roles. It’s exactly where the Jets are right now and the coach knows it too. “There’s a lot of things we’re not doing. It’s not necessarily personnel as much as decisions,” said Noel and once again he’s right.
Hockey is as technical and strategic a game as it ever has been but one key aspect needs to exist in all players for success: an instinctual intelligence while playing. The Jets need to learn the details but act on their natural instinct as they know hockey.
The Jets can afford only one more loss in their next seven games if other teams play to standards set thus far this season. “To me this is going to be the true test of what character you have, what you’ve got.” Those were honest words from Noel. He’s a coach who looks like a frazzled parent. Exasperated by behaviour and decisions and running out of answers.
I’m not sure what’s more unsettling, a coach who is lost or his GM who is visibly upset? I saw both of those post-game last night and judging from the players comments one of the two has some very tough decisions to make in the short term.
See post game comments from Thorburn, Burmistrov, and Bogosian below.
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • 
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