When you are a perennial playoff team with a good roster and top coach and you keep losing to the Winnipeg Jets is that the sign to fire your coach? I doubt the Jets had anything to do with the firing of Ken Hitchcock other than being the last team he lost to as a head coach.

Look at it this way, the Blues went up 1-0 on another early goal against Ondrej Pavelec and then they slowly disintegrated. The Jets controlled the play, at least from a possession stand point and the Blues could never recover after the Jets took a 2-1 lead as Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine both scored their 23rd goals of the season. Nik Ehlers made it 3-1 before St. Louis answered to make it 3-2 with a goal by Tarasenko. Trouba came back and put a shot off the Pietrangelo coming in on the rush to make it 4-2 and that was the end before Wheeler with an empty-netter.

For Jets fans, watching the Blues try and claw back into a game was a very familiar site and feeling. In fact had the Blues had even modestly better goaltending they would have likely had a win as Pavelec posted another sub .900 performance. In fact he let in a goal on his first shot faced, again.

Look at this tweet from Scott Billeck

Pavelec's first goal allowed in his 5 starts:
Coyotes: 1st shot
Blues: 3rd shot
Ducks: 4th shot
Sharks: 2nd shot
Blues 1st shot#NHLJets

— Scott Billeck (@ScottBilleck) February 1, 2017

That's not a pretty stat and it makes me questions some of Maurice's comments from his post-game scrum.

"He got stronger as the game went on." Maurice on Trouba's play, the 5-3 win, and more. pic.twitter.com/dlHMbcv7o3

— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) February 1, 2017

Go to the 1:45 mark to hear his comments on the goaltending. I will never argue against the psychological aspect within a game or sport. It's very relevant and important and I wonder if after five years of Pavelec there is not some sort of effect going on with the team. That effect would be if we don't score four-plus goals we probably will not win.

That alone seems to be the difference with the Jets with the recent wins when Pavelec has been in net. They seem to score more. There's many reasons for that, luck, chances, and all sorts of variables but what if they scored more all the time? Would we be talking about goaltending or saying 'this is the 80s Oilers all over again'?

Probably neither, but scoring masks a lot of mistakes just like goaltending does. 'Masks' might be a bit inaccurate, perhaps scoring makes mistakes a bit more forgivable.

Consider though that Pavelec has posted a 3-2 record in five games this season with a .893 save percentage and 3.25 GAA. ( I know we don't care about GAA) Going back to last season there was only been two games where he has not allowed more than 3 goals against, April 1 2016 vs Minnesota and Oct 2 vs Calgary in the preseason.

Frankly, I don't believe the goaltending is stable in any way that Maurice presents in his post game interview. It is still a glaring issue and one that only scoring can compensate for as a means to winning games.

Be happy, the Jets won and did so with some nice goals and good play but it's not a game they will win very often. Thats the cold hard truth.

They will be testing the threshold of a three game win streak again on Thursday night against Dallas. What kind of goaltending and scoring do we see then? I'd be curious to see if it is Pavelec or does Hellebuyck get another chance?

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