The news that everyone was waiting for this morning was word from NHL DoPS and whether Dustin Byfuglien would receive any additional punishment for his hit on Montreal's Gallagher.
If he let's up to avoid the hit he loses the puck battle so why should he have to let up if he was clearly going to win the race? Remember TJ Oshie has made a career out of hitting guys with elbows and shoulder whilst playing the puck. Peter Forsberg wasn't bad at it either.
Gallagher also had his head down, he was chasing the puck did not look up to see if anyone let alone Byfuglien was near and paid the price. The purpose of a hit is to separate the player from the puck. In today's NHL that has turned into a strange form of interference but what if you play the puck but have to brace for the collision with the player?
That's the Byfuglien part, and add to the size difference there's a bad situation but that reality is a different topic altogether. If we're going to consider size imbalances as part of the problem then shut the league down.
Andrew Copp will not be playing in Toronto or Ottawa and as Paul Maurice said 'they will find out more when they get back to Winnipeg'. So that means Nic Petan will centre Thorburn and Peluso on the fourth line along with getting the odd second unit PP look.
Speaking of the PP will the Jets look to take advantage of a defender in Dion Phaneuf who takes a lot of penalties? That being said, Byfuglien has the exact same amount of PIMS as Phaneuf soit could go both ways.
The point here is that it's been awhile since the Jets had a decent PP and it's clicking at 22.9% so far this season. Compared to the Leafs PK which sits at 75% the Jets need to get the PP unit active and attacking the Leafs. Here's why:
The Jets are going to find improvement over last season through an area like special teams where they did not find much success last year. That's like going after the easy low-hanging fruit if you can and the Jets should, particularly against the Leafs.
The reason to look at special teams, especially against the Leafs is that they are not that awful at 5V5 or even strength. Their PDO is 99.4% vs the Jets' 101.5 and they only have a -1 goal differential compared to the Jets +4. When you compare to all situations it gets ugly for the Leafs and that's what the Jets have to exploit.
Leafs -10 G+/- 96.9% PDO Jets +3 G +/- 101.8% PDO
What really skews those numbers and flatters the Jets is in shorthanded situations they are shooting 14.7% and have an ungodly 105.2% PDO. While on the PP the Leafs are only shooting 8.2% and the on ice save percentage is 77.8%- this is problematic.
All things tip though and while the Jets have been fun and lucky to watch it's likely not a sustainable approach to winning. The Leafs however are a team they should beat, just like Dallas believes and thus like the Columbus game it's one the Jets can't take lightly.