Well, that’s a wrap for the year. The Winnipeg Jets fall to the Colorado Avalanche and are eliminated from the 2024 NHL playoffs after winning only one game in the postseason.
In a desperation move, Rick Bowness made some of the changes people, like myself, have been suggesting for some time while the team has struggled. Winnipeg responded with their best effort of the playoffs, but it still was not enough.
The Jets created quite a few high-quality looks, and were better at preventing the Avs than the past games.
When looking at the xG worm, please be aware that about 80% (note: hyperbole, not actual value) of it came from one shot: Colton's rebound chance in the actual crease. That single shot was the huge drop you see right after the Jets' first goal.
Other than that, the game was mostly even, with a slight tilt in the Avs' favor. After the embarrassing unforced error by Neal Pionk on the third goal, the Jets then really started to drive things. The team started to dominate Colorado more akin to the regular season than these postseason matchups.
So Rick Bowness went back to Ol’ Faithful. For a moment, it looked like Bowness would be vindicated. Nikolaj Ehlers had a solid zone entry, dished a drop pass to Tyler Toffoli, who put one past Alex Georgiev’s blocker.
The crowd erupted. Everything was great.
And then it fell apart.
I like Adam Lowry. A lot. I think his line is pretty good at playing low-event hockey, essentially eating minutes away without much going on.
When you are chasing for most of the game, especially in an elimination game, that’s when you limit their ice. Even Paul Maurice understood that, when the just as good line of Lowry with Andrew Copp and Brandon Tanev were a 3B for the playoffs.
I’m keeping this one short, but before we jump into microstats, let me give a quick layout of the plan.
Our regularly scheduled posts are going to end for the offseason, but I’m going to try and keep the volume up for 1-2x posts a week, plus paid subscriber tiered extras.
I’m going to start by dissecting the team’s performance over the season, as a whole and each individual piece. I’ll then give a breakdown of where the Jets need to improve and give some projections on what I think the Jets should do.
This should take us to the NHL Entry Draft and NHL Free Agency. There I’ll do posts based on what happens, like any key signings or if the Jets trade Nikolaj Ehlers.
Then in the dregs of summer where there is little hockey news, I’ll be moving a bit less team-focused. I’ll be doing some posts on research topics I have saved up and been wanting to look into. I’ll tie these into the Jets but the focus is on the new information.
Finally, if I have time, I’m going to be writing a little e-book on hockey analytics. The idea is for it to be an introductory level book that transitions into more advanced topics. I will be selling the book for as dirt cheap as I can find it, and plan on sending it to the paid subscribers here for free… maybe even early copies for helping vet the book.
Now, back to microstats:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Five Hohl to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.