Home Opener in Winnipeg- Time to Start Rivalry with Flames
If anyone hd suggested that the Jets would be 3 and 1 to open their season with a four game road trip before they returned home I’d have taken that bet. Not that the Jets couldn’t do that but it as unlikely for them as they jettisoned key veterans and moved towards their own drafted stable of players. Yet here they are, 3 and 1, 6 points and nearly had a chance to make it 7 or 8 points had they actually played more than 20 minutes in Brooklyn.
Now comes word that the Jets and Flyers are talking, or could be talking and with a decent start why would the Jets want to make any moves?
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Chevy and his team have lots of time to pull the trigger and being in Philadelphia to see some one in person is hardly reason enough to suspect change. Yet that’s what makes hockey so much fun for the avid fans, the speculation.
Tonight the Jets have their home opener against the Flames, a team that should become a rival as the years go on. Both teams appear to be trending upwards in terms of development and loaded with homegrown talent. In this writer’s opinion they both have somewhat suspect goaltending but solid defense to compete. To make things more intriguing the Flames now have former Jet Michael Frolik playing for them.
With players like Gaudreau, Monahan, Bennet and recently acquired Dougie Hamilton, the Flames mimic the future young core that the Jets strive to have as well with Scheifele, Trouba, Ehlers, Petan and Lowry. In some ways these two teams are similar, or at least aiming to ride a similar trajectory. They should be rivals and an impassioned hard fought game tonight would go a long way to starting that rivalry.
For the Jets Pavelec is expected to start in net and of this writing no expected roster changes either but after 4 games should fans expect one? There has been no sighting of Adam Pardy, Paul Postma and Anthony Peluso on the ice and that might be fine for many but for a guy who signed a two year deal with Winnipeg this off season giving up one year of his UFA period when does Postma get a chance?
The Flames are starting Ramo but will be without Lance Bouma who fractured his fibula against the Blues in Wednesday. Josh Jooris is expected to be in for Bouma. Meanwhile the Jets will decide if Ben Chiarot is ready to go as he missed the skate yesterday at the MTS Centre.
From a statistical stand point of view, in what should be considered a very premature look , the Flames and Jets look as follows:
PDO Jets overachieving at 104.6 while the Flames are underachieving at 94.7
CF% Jets and Flames are below equal in possession at 47.7% and 48.2% respectivley
On Ice Shooting % As a team the Jets are shooting slightly above average at 8.9% the Flames at 5.7%
High Danger Scoring Chances For % The Jets are at 41.9% and the Flames are at 39.3%
What does this tell us before these two teams meet tonight? By my estimation the Jets have been riding some hot goaltending and decent shooting success while the Flames are likely not as bad as those numbers suggest. But this could be the regression that many have predicted was coming the Flames way right?
Nonetheless the teams still play and both need a win but that goes without saying for every game and every team; you need to win when the opportunity is there. The crowd will be into it for the Jets after a successful night (at least away from the ice) for the Moose home opener.
As tweeted by Ken Wiebe earlier- the lines are the same as last game.
What’s your call on the game, who gets the first Jets home goal?