Winnipeg Jets 2016-17: Evaluating games 21-30

After the first 20 games of the year the Jets were sporting a 9-9-2 record.   In the third segment of ten games the Jets have gone 4-5-1 to give them an overall record to 13-14-3 on the season.  The Jets have an even split as they have now played 15 home games (8-6-1) and 15 road games (5-8-2).  This squad is going to have to fix their road woes if they hope to keep the playoff push alive.  Broken down as follows:

Games 1-10:    4-6-0
Games 11-20:  5-3-2
Games 21-30: 4-5-1

Goal scoring:

Games 1-10:  Laine (6), Scheifele (5), Wheeler (3), Ehlers (2), Matthias (2),  Myers (2).
Games 11-20: Laine (12), Scheifele (10), Wheeler (6), Lowry (5), Ehlers (4), Dano (3).
Games 21-30: Laine (17), Scheifele (14), Wheeler (8), Lowry (6), Ehlers (4), Copp (4).

Patrik Laine continues to score goals at a prolific rate for a rookie and currently sits at a 21.8% shooting percentage.  There has been plenty of discussion lately about the sustainability of his goal scoring considering how far away from the opposition goalies he has been getting goals from, but the rookie Finn doesn’t appear to be slowing down.  Worth noting Mark Scheifele missed three games to injury in this ten game stretch so his four goals came in seven games.  Other than that the production has dried up with no player being more snakebit than Nikolaj Ehlers who hasn’t scored a goal in 15 games (last one was November 10th against Arizona).  He hasn’t lacked for chances and the sophomore continues to use his speed and vision to set up his linemates (he has six assists in this stretch of ten games).

Goaltending:

Coach Maurice has clearly designated Connor Hellebucyk as his starter giving him eight starts of the ten in this stretch of games.

Connor Hellebuyck:
1-10:  2 wins, 3 losses, .914 save %, 2.63 GAA
11-20:  5 wins, 2 losses, .906 save%, 2.55 GAA
21-30: 3 wins, 4 losses, 1 SOL, .911 save %, 2.81 GAA

Overall: 10 wins, 9 losses, 1 SOL, .910 save %, 2.67 GAA

Michael Hutchinson:
1-10:  2 wins, 3 losses, .906 save %, 3.09 GAA
11-20:  0 wins, 1 loss, 2 OTL, .888 save%, 3.59 GAA
21-30: 1 win, 1 loss, .920 save %, 1.83 GAA

Overall: 3 wins, 5 losses, 2 OTL, .900 save%, 2.95 GAA

Clearly an area where the Jets need to improve and coach Maurice acknowledged this today before leaving for Alberta when asked about his tenders “goaltending has to get better” although he didn’t toss his goalies completely under the bus indicating that the special teams (see below) need to get better.  He also stated that “our goaltending in this second 15 block has been better than our first 15 block so it is trending in the right direction.”

Special teams:

Penalty kill:

Games 1-10:  7/36 (80.56%)
Games 11-10: 5/32 (84.38%)
Games 21-30: 11/41 (73.2%)

After showing improvement in the last segment block of ten games the Jets PK has declined significantly and they now sit 25th overall in the NHL.  Never a good way to win games when you are taking more penalties and giving up more goals on those penalties.

Power play:

Games 1-10:  5/44 (11.4%)
Games 11-20: 6/27 (22.2%)
Games 21-30: 4/29 (13.8%)

The Jets ended up with a few more chances this block of ten but the ability to convert those opportunities hasn’t materialized for Winnipeg.  Coach Maurice has even tried adding Dustin Byfuglien in front of the net to help cause some havoc in front but to no avail.

Injuries:

This is one area that has seen improvement as a number of players that were out the last time I looked at a block of ten games have come off the IR.  None have been as important to this team as Bryan Little who made an immediate impact upon his return from injury that kept him out of all but 7* games (*he only played a few shifts in the 1st period of the first game).  Nic Petan should be close to being activated so the Jets would be left with three players including Tyler Myers who should follow Petan and then Joel Armia and Shawn Matthias are not expected until the end of the month/sometime in January.