Winnipeg Jets 2016-17: Evaluating games 51-60

After the first 50 games of the season the Jets were sporting a 22-24-4 record.  In the sixth segment of ten games the Jets have gone 4-5-1 to give them an overall record of 26-29-5 on the season.  Broken down as follows:

Games 01-10:  4-6-0
Games 11-20:  5-3-2
Games 21-30: 4-5-1
Games 31-40: 5-5-0
Games 41-50: 4-5-1
Games 51-60: 4-5-1

Goal scoring:

Games 01-10: 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).
Games 31-40: Laine (20), Scheifele (16), Ehlers (12), Wheeler (11), Lowry (7), Little (6).
Games 41-50: Laine (21), Scheifele (21), Ehlers (17), Wheeler (15), Little (10), Lowry (7).
Games 51-60: Laine (27), Scheifele (25), Ehlers (19), Wheeler (17), Little (16), Lowry (10).

Once again Patrik Laine was leading the way as he regained his momentum in this block of ten although 50% of the goals he scored did come in one game against the Stars.  He did manage to tie Auston Matthews for the rookie goal scoring lead (having played four less games) and is now tied for the rookie points lead with 48.  Just as significant for Winnipeg was the steady production of Bryan Little who continues to produce adding six goals in ten games.  Little has one less goal than Blake Wheeler but has played in 23 fewer games.  Not to be forgotten is alternate captain Mark Scheifele who added four goals which has helped to leap frog him back into the top 5 of NHL scorers.

Goaltending:

This continues to be the area of greatest consternation among Jets fans.  Of course early in this block of ten games fans were happy to see the Jets finally string together three wins in a row but that was offset by four straight losses.  Ondrej Pavelec pulled himself from the game against the Wild when he felt something and has been replaced by Connor Hellebuyck who played all the remaining games in this block.  The forgotten man is Michael Hutchinson who continues to back up Hellebuyck but didn’t see any game action.

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
31-40: 4 wins, 3 losses, .903 save %, 3.01 GAA
41-50: 2 wins, 1 loss, .899 save %, 3.25 GAA
51-60: 2 wings, 2 losses, 1 OTL, .920 save %, 2.70 GAA

Overall: 18 wins, 15 losses, 1 OTL, 1 SOL, .910 save %, 2.80 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
31-40: 1 win, 2 losses, .875 save %, 3.95GAA
41-50: 0 wins, 3 losses, 1 OTL, .895 save %, 3.44 GAA
51-60: Did not play.

Overall: 4 wins, 10 losses, 3 OTL, .894 save%, 3.23 GAA

Ondrej Pavelec:
41-50:  2 wins, 1 loss, .907 save%, 3.05 GAA
51-60:  2 wins, 3 losses..875 save %, 3.88 GAA

Overall:  4 wins, 4 loss, .888 save%, 3.55 GAA

Special teams:

After improving in the previous block of ten the Jets regressed in this block although they did manage to take fewer penalties.  While staying out of the box is important they were clearly unable to keep the puck out of the net with a man down killing it off at just 74%.  They rank 28th in the league when killing a penalty.  On the flip side having an extra man on the ice didn’t prove to be much of a boon for the team as they converted on just under 18% of their opportunities.  Overall their 17.9% has them at 19th in the NHL on the power play.

Penalty kill:

Games 1-10:  7/36 (80.56%)
Games 11-10: 5/32 (84.38%)
Games 21-30: 11/41 (73.2%)
Games 31-40: 11/36 (69.4%)
Games 41-50: 6/34 (82.4%)
Games 51-60: 6/23 (73.9%)

Power play:

Games 1-10:  5/44 (11.4%)
Games 11-20: 6/27 (22.2%)
Games 21-30: 4/29 (13.8%)
Games 31-40: 7/29 (24.1%)
Games 41-50: 7/32 (21.8%)
Games 51-60: 5/28 (17.9%)

Injuries:

Marko Dano has continued to progress to the point where he was back practicing with the team and made the road trip to close out the block of ten.  There was finally some resolution to the Tyler Myers situation as the Jets defenceman had surgery on February 7th and will be out of the lineup for 6-8 weeks.  On the same day that Myers had surgery Ondrej Pavelec was injured in a game against the Wild and hasn’t played since.  Another defenceman who also had surgery was Toby Enstrom, who was slashed to start the game against the Lightning on the 11th and will be out 2-3 weeks.

To date this season the Jets have lost 239 man games to injury.  Latest Injury Report.