After scraping through a 3rd period vs the Wild by holding on for dear life, the Jets look to see if anything easier is coming their way when they host Dallas tonight at the Bell MTS Centre. It won't be easy as the Stars are right with the Jets in the standings with one more game played.
The two teams are identical in goal differential at +1 and have scored and allowed almost identical amounts of goals, but is that where the similarities end?
When looking at the all important possession metrics at even strength or 5 vs 5 settings the Stars out perform the Jets by a wide margin. The Jets sit 30tin the league at CF% while the Stars are 9th. That is a stark difference. There is more when looking at expected goals too as the Stars xGF is far higher than the Jets as a team stat.
In this category the Star rank 9th again while the Jets improve a bit to 23rd overall. Now let's look at PDO to see what that tells us. The Jets are 8th and the Stars fall to 27th as their shooting percentage is not quite at the average level of around 8% and their save percentage is lower than average at 5 vs 5 too.
In some ways the Jets should perhaps expect a continuation of Tuesday's frightful 3rd period if Dallas starts to figure out some more offence and it seems teams do against the Jets. That's simply because the Jets can't seem to generate offence and activity at the same rate as they allow it. They are middle of the league for shot attempts allowed at 5 vs 5 but fall way off for shot attempts for thus it appears teams are taking advantage and Connor Hellebuyck is left to save the day. Does this happen again?
In other news Tucker Poolman, a healthy scratch for the past 5 games we reassigned to the Moose. It's likely that Adam Lowry is set to return and with all defence present and accounted for it's better for Poolman to get time and exposure with the farm team.
If Lowry is indeed set to return come Saturday how does the line up get arranged? Is there a chance we see Lowry with Hendricks or will Maurice split the two to add grit and character through the line up? That's a bit premature but given the Stars game tonight and the results not just on the scoreboard there may have to be some roster and line tinkering to stop the obvious possession imbalance.