What Jets fans saw today has to be concerning. Frankly there is more than the game that has to be concerning, as a lot of questions that are now front and centre. Denying so would be foolish and more importantly disrespectful to any passionate Jets fan.
First, let's revisit this past week.
The team embarks on a 6 game road trip, the longest of the season and opens it up with a win vs the Devils. They took a 2-0 lead into the third to barely hang on and win 3-1. Enter the next game against the Islanders, a rare 3 goal explosion happens yet the teams limps into a 3-2 win.
Look at the Fenwick charts for each game
and
What you see is a team who got a lead and took the rest of the night off and coming into the game against the Flyers, on Black Friday, didn't even bother to show up.
Now go back to Friday during the Jets skate on the US Thanksgiving. I first heard the report from Rick Ralph on his show the Rona Roundtable. Rick played the quotes from Ladd and Noel after the practice. Why? Because words were exchanged between Coach, team, Captain, Coach and Captain in the middle of practice before a resumption of effort an a far greater intensity.
Rick, who I respect immensely, made a point after along these lines, "some one, some where will make a bigger deal than necessary out of this." (my paraphrase)
No one did but it's time to now and I'm surprised no one has. So I'll start it.
The coach calls out the team for a slack-assed effort in practice, the captain offers resistance immediately after and the next day, the next game the entire team takes two periods off before showing up. That might be generous as some who argue they never showed up might be more accurate and justifiably so.
What's going on?
No really, what's going on? And what does anyone in this organization intend to do about it?
Let's get down to some basic questions.
Is Ladd representing the 'team' or the 'players'?
Is Noel talking to certain players of the 'team'?
Did the players take offense and simple not show up?
Who is running the ship?
How do the Jets clean up this mess?
Something is amiss and if you heard the quote from Ladd he couldn't even expand in a typical player cliche ridden, non-committal blandness. Noel took it further but he was not willing to name names or even go so far as to get into specific motivations. Shane Hnidy was there to ask what many have said was a 'good, good' question but all it did was give Noel a typical broadcast partner softball exit-way.
Yeah, that is exactly what it was. If Hnidy was worth his salt he would have asked 'who was lacking effort and why did you need to respond to the captain in such a manner?'
If you feel that's harsh check out reality. The Jets mailed it in after two periods in two consecutive games the coach knew it, saw it in practice called his team on it and the captain rebuked it all. Forget specifics, we saw with our own eyes what happened on Friday.
There was only one forward who had a worse Corsi % than Ladd and that was James Wright. So while some may question who is running the ship from the bridge the reality is different. There's enough evidence to say that it's worth questioning the quality of leadership on the ice as much as that in the wheelhouse.
So which one do you fix first?