Winnipeg Jets 2016-17: Evaluating games 11-20

In the Jets first 10 games of the season the Jets went (4-6-0) and we decided to evaluate the goal scoring, goaltending, special teams and injuries.  In the second segment of ten games the Jets have gone 5-3-2 to even their overall record to 9-9-2 on the season.

Lets look at the same categories we looked at previously in games 1-10:

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).

Most of the players that have been producing for Winnipeg maintained the pace they were on in the first 10 games.  In fact Laine, Scheifele, Wheeler, Ehlers all scored the same number of goals in games 11-20 as they had in 1-10.  The Jets saw more production from guys like Lowry who had just one in first 10 but added four more in the next set of ten.  Marko Dano played in his 10th game since being called up from the Moose and has three goals.  Overall the Jets aren’t having any issues putting the puck in the net currently sitting in seventh spot in the NHL with 57 goals (ninth overall with a 2.80 GF/GP).

Goaltending:

The first ten games of the season saw the Jets bench boss evenly split his starts between Michael Hutchinson and Connor Hellebuyck but he has since abandoned the rotation in favour of giving the net to Connor Hellebuyck. Hellebuyck who started seven games to the three contests for Hutchinson.

Connor Hellebuyck:
1-10:  2 wins, 3 losses, .914 save %, 2.63 GAA
11-20:  5 wins, 2 losses, .906 save%, 2.55 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

Overall both Hellebuyck and Hutchinson’s goals saved above average have decreased as Hellebuyck went from 0.26 to -1.31 while Hutchinson went from -0.88 to -3.74.

Special teams:

Penalty kill:

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

They have shown improvement in the PK and have moved up from 20th overall to 17th in the NHL with an overall penalty kill of 82.3%.

Power play:

Games 1-10:  5/44 (11.35%)
Games 11-20: 6/27 (22.2%)

The Jets have clearly gotten a lot less opportunities with the man advantage but have also scored more and have an overall 15.3% power play percentage which ranks them 18th overall in the NHL which is a jump from their rank of 25th overall after ten games.

Injuries:

The Jets only had five guys on the list of injured players when I examined games 1-10 back on November 2nd.  As has been well documented on this site the Jets have steadily added to this total in the last 10 games and they haven’t removed any of the guys who were on the last list.  On November 3rd against the Capitals they lost both Mathieu Perreault (upper body) and Joel Armia (lower body).  While Perreault may be a little while still, Joel Armia is out long term with a projected return of mid December to January.  In a rather unusual coincidence Tyler Myers (lower body) was felled two weeks to the day that he sustained his last injury, which once again occurred in Colorado on a Friday night in the second game of a back to back (strange but true).  Lastly, we have rookie Kyle Connor (upper body) who was taken out of commission by a Kyle Clifford hit into the boards when the Kings were visiting the MTS Centre on November 13th.  It isn’t all negative in the Jets infirmary as Drew Stafford is expected to return to the lineup in the next couple of games and we may be seeing Bryan Little back in the next seven to ten days.