Game 35 Analytical Recap: Jets Fall in Overtime as Chance Creation Gap Persists
A late push wasn’t enough as Winnipeg struggles to generate offense beyond its top line (and Morgan Barron).
The slide continues as the Winnipeg Jets lost 4-3 in overtime to the Utah Hockey Club. I almost said Utah Jazz. I almost said Utah Mammoths.
Sorry. Not funny. Needed levity.
Anyways, it was a near comeback, but ultimately the team that created the most chances ended up winning.
I’m going to keep this one fairly quick. Sorry.
I didn’t watch this game live, as I was picking up my wife and kids returning from visiting family. I watched the game later that night once everyone had settled down, tracking it for the paid subscriber microstats data.
I’ll have an additional post coming Tuesday or Wednesday with a broader update on individual and team performance.
Back to this game.
The HockeyViz data looked a bit strange at first glance, with very few high-quality chances showing up in the third period. Looking over at MoneyPuck helped contextualize it.
The shots were there, but most of them were low quality.
The Jets struggled to penetrate the slot and spent a lot of time working the perimeter without turning that possession into meaningful chances.
Some players had good games. Some did not.
The Nyquist experiment on the top line lasted all of one period, which I suppose counts as a sample size.
It’s not that Nyquist is a bad player. He’s just not remotely a first-line forward. On an average team, he’s a third liner with some second power play and penalty kill usage.
The bigger issue is that the Jets simply do not have enough talent to properly fill out their middle-six. The same can be said for the bottom defensive pair, recent Logan Stanley shooting adventures aside.
Please share this post with friends and like the ones you really appreciate. It helps me understand what resonates and refine what I focus on.
And now to look at decision making and actions of individual players with microstats such as scoring chances, chance passes, zone exits, zone entries, forechecking, and entry denial tracked manually by moi…
