The Winnipeg Jets make their lone visit to Pittsburgh this evening. Despite their record not being all that impressive they do have a number of talented pieces that can make quality plays.
Here is how their lines are looking these days
Bryan Little is a very underrated player and Nikolaj Ehlers is one of the younger players in the league that gets glossed over. Blake Wheeler has been among the league’s best wingers the past two or three years.
Patrik Laine is having a tremendous rookie campaign. He just notched his third hat trick of the year and now has 26 goals on the year. That puts him on a 41 goal pace in an 82 game season. It isn’t likely he hits that mark though because of the time he missed from a concussion earlier in the year.
Mark Scheifele is another vastly underrated forward. In September he was given some exposure when he was the right wing on a line with both Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews. It was very entertaining to watch.
So why is Winnipeg currently sitting in 25th place? They were miserable to start the year on the possession front and their ceiling in net has been league average
The Jets were missing Jacob Trouba up until November 11th this season. His presence in the lineup gives others easier minutes and facilitates success for lesser players. Offensively Trouba has been excellent this year. His 5v5 points per 60 is 1.29. He is the eighth best defenseman in the entire league this year at generating offense at even-strength. Justin Schultz is ninth at 1.22 and Penguins fans know how impressive he has been this season.
Jacob Trouba was a popular player in trade rumors during the offseason because of his holdout and desire to play somewhere other than Winnipeg. His RFA contract status was being leveraged against him and ultimately that leverage ended up winning out like it does with mostly every RFA. Trouba ended up signing below his market value. He inked a two-year deal worth three million each season.
Winnipeg's goaltending has been pretty meh most of the season, but it is mildly trending down as of late. It might have to do with Ondrej Pavelec's recall and subsequent playing time. His first NHL game of the year was on January 18th and since then has made eight starts. In five of those eight starts he has had an all-situations save percentage below .900. He is at .888 for the season. That isn't helping.
He is exactly the type of defenseman the Penguins want to acquire as do 28 other teams.
On the Penguins side of things here is what the lines looked like
Carl Hagelin was also filtering through the Bonino line. He isn't going to play tonight, but taking part as a full participant is a good sign that he is progressing from his concussion and a return to the lineup should be sooner than later.
Even with Conor Sheary and Bryan Rust out of the lineup they have a really good top nine and what should be a somewhat functional fourth line.
The defense pairings look very familiar.
Dumoulin-Letang
Maatta-Daley
Cole-Schultz
Marc-Andre Fleury will be getting the start tonight. The Penguins visit Columbus tomorrow night and are saving their #1 guy for the divisional game which makes sense.
This year has an amazing class of rookies. Matt Murray is part of that which I think people tend to forget. Matt Murray uniquely won a Stanley Cup before his rookie eligibility has run out much like Canadiens legend Ken Dryden did many years ago. It's probably time his name gets thrown into the Calder conversation.
That looks pretty good. Haven't heard from the trade Malkin crowd in some time.
Jaromir Jagr celebrated his 45th birthday by tallying his 1,900th career points. Congrats.
Thanks for reading!
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