Petan, Scheifele and Ehlers lead in Win over Flames
It’s was dream come true for the believers in the ‘draft and develop’ model of franchise building, even it if was only a pre-season game. With a box score that looked like this:
Scheifele 2g 1a Ehlers 1g 1a Petan 1a
There could be no one happier than the players themselves other than Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff. Granted this was only a pre-season game but there are jobs on the line and Nic Petan probably secured his and Ehlers likely cemented his.
The Flames were without Monahan and Gaudreau last night but the Jets were also not icing a full lineup, regardless the teams played a feisty game that resulted in some penalties and a scrap between Bollig and Peluso. In this case Raffl was going to fight or had at least dropped the gloves but Peluso came in to do his job. As tweeted last night, he was literally ‘fighting for his job’ as he has to be seen as the odd guy out with Petan making such a strong surge.
If you didn’t see the highlights of Petan’s assists (yes we’re getting bit giddy over an assist) take look below:
What you won’t see is that after Stafford dishes the puck to Ehlers, hoping to keep it onside, the rookie kicks it from one foot to the next before going to his stick to feed Petan. It was a very savvy move and helped set up that goal.
Jets brass has to be happy with what they have seen and despite some size concerns with both Petan and Ehlers the two players help their own with physical play but when things got testy it was Mark Scheifle, on a line with Ehlers, who had to step in. That’s not going to do much and thus the ghosts of ‘protection’ still linger and create concerns.
Depsite it being only a pre-season game the players you want doing good things were doing them. It’s a simple statement but it’s the truth and Ehlers goal showed why the Jets have given him a long rope in terms of play.
While a bit sloppy in terms of how Ortio played it, Ehlers held on for his shooting lane and scored. Finding that lane in the slot coming across is the real talent and Ehlers is showing why the Jets have faith in him.
With cuts looming and Raffl probably not wanting to take lower AHL money as opposed to his decent 300k salary in Europe he’s likely going back. The hard part comes with the depth defence and forwards. Things got a lot tougher for Peluso last night, even if he did come in to fight for a guy who probably won’t be in the locker room next week.