Well, that was both fun and stress-inducing.
Let’s be real here. That’s not the recipe coach Rick Bowness has in mind for the Winnipeg Jets to go deep in the playoffs.
Yes, the Winnipeg Jets have superior goaltending to the Colorado Avalanche and are more likely to win any game than the above visual represents. That just speaks to the average game.
Still, engaging in a scoring race against the top-scoring NHL team is not the blueprint for the Jets, and they all know it.
However, the Jets have the league’s best goaltender and are normally above average defensively… The Jets winning a game when they forget how to defend and Connor Hellebuyck struggles to make his normal saves puts the Jets in an advantageous situation where they can play more like themselves moving forward and don’t suffer from their mistakes.
It should be noted that it was a fairly back-and-forth game outside of the early start where Winnipeg forgot they were in the playoffs. Bowness wisely noted that the Jets were playing a bit nervously and seemingly chasing the play to make hits. After the first goal though, the team did settle down. In fact, the Jets had the scoring chance advantage between the Avs' first goal and when the score was 7-4.
Most of the Winnipeg Jets spent more time in their defensive zone than they did in the offensive zone. But, I think things look a lot better for the Jets if you remove the first and last 10 minutes of the game. Removing samples isn’t great for statistical analysis, but I don’t expect the Jets' true-talent quality to be “we forgot we started” nor “we’re leading 7-4 let’s try to not f*** this up” shell game.
While the Jets' top two lines performed about equivalently in shot volume — i.e., Corsi — which is more predictive of future success, it was the top line that really drove the Jets' shot quality battle against the Avs, predominantly because more of their shots got through than Colorado’s.
In terms of defensive pairs, we didn’t see any pair as a standout performer at 5v5.
Aside from 5v5, I thought the power play looked pretty good for both units. They created a lot more shots and looks than we typically see the Jets create. I did note in our preseason preview that the Avs' penalty kill isn’t very strong either.
That said, their power play is very strong and the Jets really need to make sure they stay out of the box.
Overall, I don’t think it was a pretty, picture-perfect game for anyone, but there were some strong performances in flashes.
I tracked micro-statistics, which included newly included forechecking and puck recoveries for this game. It was a lot to track, especially in the first period which had nearly as many events as some games!
Let’s take a look at that…
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