There are some critical things that must happen for the Jets to take game three of this series. At this point breaking down some of the mistakes and responsibilities seems almost pointless, we know where the errors occurred and if you watched the Vegas San Jose game last night you saw a mother case where a huge mistake cost the game. Reduce those and improve your chance of winning right? It's easier said than done but here's what the Jets must do.
1. Control the puck along the boards or come back and support for outlet passes to avoid them. As mentioned in the last piece the Preds had their way with the Jets along the boards in all three zones, and three times proved costly. With last change the Jets should be able to get their house in order for the right matchups but Maurice has to provide some structure to avoid an area they were getting beaten on, and soundly beaten.
2. More than one line needs to be going. Sure Tanev scored as did Buff but the only real generation of offense came from 27-25-29 and Laine looks a bit tuckered out right now. Perhaps it's mental fatigue and he needs a goal but other than Scheifele and depth there has not been much in the way of scoring from the players the Jets need. The game is tighter and while the Jets may have relied on preferred shot location and opportunities in the past those seem to be drying up and the Jets have to take a different approach to generation and managing scoring opportunities.
3. Reduce the mistakes. It seems obvious but on three of the goals by Nashville the Jets had preventable mistakes. Some were decision based an others could have been avoided by communication, but the simple factor of awareness as a group needs to be better. Some one has to take charge, give a direction for another player to help avoid breakdowns in all three zones.
4. Passing. Has anyone else notice that the Jets made a remarkable amount of soft, bad angle or generally poor passes the first two games? Give credit to the Preds as they have done quite a bit to disrupt the Jets but I wonder if it's a bit to do with being in a hostile building? Noise and distraction (what's with digital billboards on the glass) may affect the Jets and can home ice help them? Speaking of the ice- it looked iffy in spots and I wonder if the smoother and better conditioned ice at Bell MTS Centre helps the Jets.
5. Physical play. While it's silly to run around chasing hits when you could be playing the puck it would appear the Jets are not doing as much to separate the Preds players from the puck with the body. It's hard to do when you are chasing the play but not impossible to time when the opportunity presents itself. Lowry, Copp and Tanev to name a few have to use there skills as the ultimate disruptors to generate some opportunities with physical play.
6. Reads. This could be a part of the mistakes part but also take it the other way. The Jets have to read the plays coming at them better, particularly the traffic in front of Hellebuyck with the jumping skater, but they also need to give the Preds a few different things to read as well. This is on Maurice to find some cracks in the armor and get his players to throw the Preds off their game a bit.
The one thing that many fans are concerned with is assigning blame for the breakdowns of last game. If you want to do that it's fine but who doesn't fix how as was presented last blog. Who might change the frequency of how but there is a group effort to change here that needs to happen.
Matthieu Perreault was on the ice yesterday in a regular contact jersey and Joel Armia along with Dmytri Kulikov were both skating in non-contact jerseys. While it's unknown on the return for the latter two that's good news especially for the defense corps if Kulikov is even possible soon. Armia would be a welcome addition back too simply for some size and upgrade on skill but no player could help the Jets more than Perreault. Having him return could make the Jets fourth line a formidable force and one that can be deployed in very effective ways on home ice.
If Perreault sits up and I'm guessing he will the bottom six looks like this:
Lowry Copp Tanev
Perreault Little Roslovic
That's a frighteningly good option to have and Jets fans should say a little prayer that it can happen tonight.
Last game was the first game the Jets did not score first in a game this post season. That means nothing but...getting back into routine is ever a bad thing. Enjoy the party downtown if you go and bring the noice Jets fans- Nashville set a very high bar.