Last year my wife used to call T-Mobile arena in Vegas "the house' because it seemed that they always won there. Well last night the Jets came in and played the perfect hand to earn their first win in sin city and buck a losing streak.
Paul Maurice had almost no choice to tweak his lines with the return of Nik Ehlers who somehow talked himself back into active duty the day before. Ehlers made his mark quickly in the game and Kyle Connor followed suit to give the Jets a 2-0 early lead. Vegas eventually tied it up but Laine's PP slump buster and then Lowry's late goal gave the Jets a 4-2 lead going into the second intermission and that would be all they needed as they hit cruise control for a 6-3 win.
Head coach Paul Maurice had to do some shuffling for more than just Ehlers return, he had to find some sort of spark for a team that had become listless, and that's for a variety of reasons. Moving Laine up to play with Scheifele and Wheeler was the first change and without the two goals, both on the PP, the young Finn had his best game in weeks, skating hard and totally involved in the play. At one point he came to Scheifele's aid in a scrum in the corner with some physical play seldom seen.
Wheeler, being the captain, was probably trying almost too hard to help his young team mate and once the trio decided to play for opportunity as opposed to slump-busting the right things started to happen. Let's call it the Tao of Hockey as they found 'the way'.
Probably the biggest gain for the Jets was the return of TLC and what a return it was with 2 goals and almost total domination on the ice with a 63% CF. More importantly they played all around 15 minutes of ice time and that kept both Scheifele and Wheeler under 20 minutes. This line was easily the best for the Jets last season as they can grind the opposition down like no other and depending on which opposition line it is the opportunity after is high for whoever comes on next.
It's high time this trio was brought back together and only under the most dire circumstances should they be split.
The trouble spot came of the 4th line with the trio of Perreault, Rosovic and Appleton. They struggled in their 8 mins of ice time and if I were Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff perhaps my plan B on the trade deadline would be finding a player who can juice that line up.
The return of Ehlers certainly had an effect but so did the lines and that has to be taken into account. There was no reason not to use what was available to keep TLC together through the injuries.
Defensivey the Jets still had some adventures and while not a perfect game the concern has to be the play in the slot and how confusion there leads to opportunities for the opposition. That can be worked on and should be.
Connor Hellebuyck had a good game aside from the third goal allowed to start the third period. He came up huge when needed with a #timelysave, one that potentially change the game.
The Jets have irons in the fire on the trade front and had Ehlers returned a week ago I wonder if things for Chevy would have changed. With one more game before the trade deadline there's a chance to act and acquire the likes of a Mark Stone, or Dzingel, or Hayes etc... but after last night is Chevy thinking differently?
There's room for optimism with this group as it stands and surely not every game will be like that down the stretch however, the Jets the ability to add but do they need to make as big a splash as has been rumored?