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Game day vs Bruins & thoughts

October 17, 2016, 4:55 PM ET [25 Comments]
Peter Tessier
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Game day vs Bruins & thoughts


The Boston Bruins come into Winnipeg without a key piece of their somewhat confusing roster puzzle- Patrice Bergeron. The Bruins are 1-1 in the young season and are coming west after 4-1 loss in Toronto. There’s the facts now let’s dive into the speculation and guess work.

It’s likely the Bruins are a decent opponent for the Jets resembling more of the Wild than the Hurricanes, both of who were the Jets first opponents. Team like the Wild are more who the Jets should be measuring themselves agains as that is where they seemed to have the most trouble with, at least that’s what the ‘eye-test’ would say.

The WIld game on Saturday night in St. Paul was a spirited affair with emotion and battles, the kind of win people (some) would say builds character. That being said it’s not that the Jets didn’t win or that they did win against Carolina, the trouble is they are getting killed in the possession game. Two close games may mask those problems to many fans.


Winnipeg ranks dead last in the league at Corsi for ta 41.79% that’s ‘plummet for Patrick’ level bad. They are shooting relatively well at 9.68% which is just above league average but the goaltending….881 at even strength is awful. Yet with some terrible possession metrics and brutal goaltending they are at 1-1 with two, one-goal games.

In terms of possession, the Bruins are just ahead of the WIld at 52.22% vs 51.91% while the Hurricanes are an even 50%. The Jets can’t score their way out of trouble all season as players get cold, teams learn patterns and defend better, and sometimes you run out of luck.

This leads us back to the root of the problems- the Jets roster. We as fans and observers knew it was going to be different, and probably younger but how different and how much younger?

We saw the opening roster and now we are seeing the results of that roster. The problems may not be where we think though.

There are only 3 players on the team in positive possession position and 2 are rookies; Laine, Tanev with Wheeler being the lone vet. If you look down the list to the bottom, the deep dark depths you get a list that looks like this:

Lowry 31.58%
Connor 32.61%
Thorburn 33.33%
Little 33.33%
Chiarot 35.29%
Burmistrov 35.29%
Ehlers 35.71%

Then Stafford, Mathias, Morrissey, and Postma before you get some one who gets into the 40% range. This is the make or break area for this team as the bottom six since 2011 have often been a dark hole but this is something else. Blackhole singularity bad.


Herein lies the challenge for the Jets and more specifically head coach Paul Maurice, how do your correct this and how much time will it take? There’s no point in dissecting the opposition for pregame analysis as it means nothing when your team cannot get their own house in order. The Jets were lucky to be within 2 near the end of the game in Minny and they were lucky that Carolina is already developing a reputation for third period collapses this early in the season.

The youth movement, or rather the movement towards trial by fire, can be a costly one with cascading effects but look at who is feeling the hit. Ehlers, Lowry, Stafford Connor and Burmistrov should all be pushing play, some more than others but it’s not happening right now.

That’s where concerns should lie for fans. You could see it in game one, the disconnect between players and system. Out of sync, out of alignment and lacking control. For the likes of Connor it makes sense, he’s going through what I would call the 2011 Scheifele effect. That’s where you come out of preseason feeling confident but are seeing the game gets much quicker and tighter now that the results matter.

It’s not the easiest thing to adjust to and while Connor would not be the first player to struggle as a rookie, it’s how the Jets want to handle it that will matter. Connor is not there to carry the load yet, he’s learning but the guys he should be learning from, Lowry, Burmistrov, Ehlers, and Stafford are getting shelled.

We can discuss whether it’s better to have Marko Dano up and Connor down soon but at this point the bigger question is when do the so-called vets and experienced players show up? If it’s not soon I think there’s bigger questions to answer.

There’s no panic here, only a simply identification of where the focus needs to be. The Jets are not getting the puck or driving the play with it and there are some key suspects who are lagging. Look at them, look at their shifts and look at what they are assigned to do. This team was always going to live and die by it’s bottom 6 and bottom pairing defense but the problem that has been presented goes a bit deeper than them.
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