Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
The Winnipeg Jets bounced back in a big way on Saturday night, smothering the Colorado Avalanche en route to a 3-0 victory inside Canada Life Centre. As always is the case with these two teams, the game produced plenty of storylines.
Anytime you get set to face Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, and the Colorado Avalanche, you are usually in for a tough night defensively.
It was the opposite for the Jets this night, as a team effort shut out the Avs and held them to only three high-danger chances at five-on-five all night.
“We did a good job of really battling, tonight I thought we put it all together,” Scott Arniel said after the game.” It was a real solid game against a different opponent — we knew that LA wasn’t going to give us much room to work. [Colorado], there’s a transition and speed game that they have. I thought we did a fantastic job of eliminating that.”
The Avalanche had zero high-danger chances at five-on-five for the final two periods of this game. While Connor Hellebuyck stood tall with a 22-save shutout, all shutouts are not created equally, and this was a night where the Jets’ defensive core stepped up.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
When the Jets’ top pairing of Josh Morrissey and Dylan DeMelo were on the ice at five-on-five, Winnipeg controlled the play. They led in the following categories:
– Goals: 1-0
– Scoring chances: 9-1
– Expected goals percentage: 82.39%
– Shot attempts: 23-11
– High-danger chances: 5-11111
Those are impressive numbers for the Jets’ top pair, but their TOI leader for a second straight night in regulation, was Dylan Samberg (24:47). Arniel didn’t want his minutes to get that high, but Samberg was so effective both nights of the back-to-back, that he earned the minutes.
“Yeah, we didn’t really want him to play that much,” Arniel admitted after the game “But again, I wasn’t sure how after last night being 22 minutes how it was going to go. But man, he just built on last night’s game. They saw an awful lot of MacKinnon. All four of those D did a great job I thought against that big line. We had to switch off different guys at times. To have Sammy back, that’s a big plus for us.”
Nikolaj Ehlers scored just 68 seconds into this game to give the Jets a 1-0 lead, and he fired one into the empty netter late in the third to make it 3-0. Goals aside, it may have been one of Ehlers’ best all-around games of the season, and when asked about it, he agreed.
“Oh, this season for sure. I think I felt good out there, our line was going in every single zone. We didn’t create a bunch of chances. But we didn’t give up anything against a pretty good line in this league.”
That line he’s talking about is the Drouin-MacKinnon-Rantanen line for Colorado, which Ehlers-Lowry-Iafallo was tasked with shutting down. They scored the one five-on-five goal, outshot, and out-chanced that line in their minutes.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
It was a strong performance for Ehlers, who next to Lowry, played one of his best games of the season, which got Scott Arniel thinking.
“It’s intriguing now. It’s got me thinking. I liked a lot of what I saw,” is what Arniel said of the Lowry/Ehlers duo.
The reason Lowry had to slide up was because Vladislav Namestnikov (lower-body) was ruled out of this game, but the Jets may have stumbled into a line combination that they want to see more of going forward, and in my opinion, they should.
It feels as though this week has been full of mind-boggling Connor Hellebuyck stats, so why not add a few more? He recorded his sixth shutout of the season on this night, matching a previous career-high in just 34 starts. He also has the same amount of shutouts (6) as he does regulation losses, which is just ridiculous.
Hellebuyck has also started two games against the Colorado Avalanche this season and has shutouts in both of them. The Avs have a combined 57 shots across those two games but no goals. Tonight was 22 shots against, and only three high-danger chances, but Arniel said that he still deserves the credit for a shutout performance.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
“Never, ever discredit a guy that gets a shutout,” Arniel said. “I mean, he had to make stops. He knew that they were trying to get their (shot) volume. And that’s another thing we did a really good job of tonight, which was get in shot lanes. We did a really good job of making sure that not all those pucks got to the net front. But when stuff happens, he’s there.”
It will be interesting to track which stat or milestone Hellebuyck reaches next, and the new ways in which he continues to improve upon a Vezina Trophy-winning campaign from a season ago.
The Jets still have three games remaining on this homestand, beginning on Tuesday night against the Vancouver Canucks. Stay tuned to Illegalcurve.com for the latest regarding the Jets and Moose (who are 4-0-1 since January 1) over the next week.
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