What's Actually Going On With The Jets?
A deep-dive on the Winnipeg Jets analytical results after three games versus Colorado Avalanche
Then there it was three…
The Jets are not yet behind the 8 ball, but it’s starting to look a little nerve racking. Winnipeg has to win three of the next four games in order to make it to the second round.
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The Playoffs Thus Far
We’re now three games into this series, that could extend anywhere between five and seven games total.
Game One
In game one, the Winnipeg Jets struggled in terms of shot metrics. They controlled about one-third of the possession time, with a 33.6% Corsi share at 5v5. According to the shot quality variables that are publicly available, the Jets were only marginally better with a 35.2% expected goal share. The results looking at “all situations” weren’t much different.
However, the team outscored their shot metrics.
I believe a part of that was Alexander Georgiev having a very poor performance, but I also think the Jets were able to be very opportunistic on a few key mistakes from the Avalanche.
I think sometimes people conflate descriptive and predictive, and how different those two variables may be in the short run.
I believe the Jets played better than their shot metrics that game would suggest, but that those shot metrics were something to be concerned about moving forward. Think of it as a person who feels well, but the doctor’s diagnostics suggest they won’t unless they fix what’s going well.
Game Two
Game two was those diagnostic warnings coming to fruition. The Jets continued to struggle in the same manner as the first game in shot metrics by about the same degree but weren’t able to be as opportunistic as last game.
In addition, Georgiev was no longer performing significantly worse than Connor Hellebuyck.
The Jets started off strong but fell apart and weren’t able to adjust.
Game Three
This game was a lot more nuanced. From a shot metrics perspective, the Jets actually slightly tilted the game at 5v5 to their advantage. They had 50.3% of the shot attempt share (Corsi) and 62.8% of the expected goal share at 5v5.
However, penalties got them in a lot of trouble. When you look at all situations, the Jets were 44.7% Corsi and 45.6% expected goals. While the sequence of penalties was heavily tilted against the Jets and momentum, the Jets did have a flip compared to the first game where they were still a negative goal differential at 5v5.
So, while penalty issues and an extremely passive and weak penalty kill were exploited and put the dagger in the game, the Jets weren’t winning the goal differential battle at evens either.
Overall
The net outcome of these results is the Jets have controlled 42.7% of shot attempts and 45.9% of expected goals. The Colorado Avalanche are a really good team, but over the regular season, their opponents averaged a 42.8% Corsi and 48.2% expected goal share at 5v5.
Looking at all situations, the Jets are 42.6% Corsi and 38.3% expected goals. That’s much worse than the 47.0% Corsi and 48.6% expected goal share that regular season opponents had against Colorado.
The Winnipeg Jets in theory should be better than the average opponent Colorado faced in the regular season. In theory, the Jets should be an above-average NHL team and making things difficult for the Avalanche.
But they are not.
Forwards
All models are wrong, some are useful - George Box
Last time I wrote there were a few individuals who looked at these metrics and did not understand the meaning of that statement or these numbers. These numbers are not holistic and perfect arbiters of a player’s performance. That doesn’t exist anyways, whether statistical or eye test.
What these statistics are though is information. Information that represents real things that happened on the ice and things that matter. Nothing gives you the whole picture, but this does give you a part of the picture that one should not ignore. That requires nuance and context, but that doesn’t mean you throw out the baby with the bathwater.
So what do we get from this data? What trends can we extract?
Well, the most basic trend is that the Jets haven’t played very well as a team. No one is in the net positive for weighted shots or Corsi. Not all of these players have been given the same role or environment, but the overall performance is not a pass.
There’s no standouts where we can confidently say: That player or line is the exception. They are playing well and should get more ice time.
In addition, another storyline and one I’ve pointed out already: The Jets’ strength in depth has been a weakness. The fourth line has been among the worst in outshot and outscored. Going into the playoffs, this something people were expecting to be a strength, yet instead it’s been a weakness.
One thing noted to me was that Sean Monahan never got a goal against as he got off the ice in time on the Josh Manson breakaway goal. So, you can keep that information in mind when looking at these numbers.
Defenders
Again, trends and context.
Nate Schmidt comes out on top, but we have to remember he didn’t play in the two games the Jets vastly struggled at 5v5. He played well for his minutes, but his minutes were easier and the context of a better game by the team overall.
I would say Schmidt played good enough, maybe… but nothing special.
The rest of the team has been pretty rough. Josh Morrissey and Dylan DeMelo were better in the third game, but they weren’t great.
I think the results under exaggerate Neal Pionk’s struggles here because him and Brenden Dillon were on the ice for most of the PDO fortunes in the first game.
Dylan Samberg was much better in the third game. Some of it was him playing better, some of it was him back on his natural side, some of it was the team playing better, and some of it was the fact that Samberg had a defensive partner who was not totally inept in moving the puck under the Avs’ pressure.
Goaltending
Here’s a tough one.
I think Connor Hellebuyck has not played as poorly as the numbers would suggest. I do not think it’s that much better though. The team has struggled in front of him, a lot.
But while Jets fans are used to him bailing the team out when they struggle, that’s not been the case over the past three games.
The Jets have allowed more goals than expected over the series. While Hellebuyck has not played poorly enough to be the cause of the Jets losses, as they would have most likely still lost with average goaltending, he is not being the solution either.
That’s not what one should hope or expect from a Vezina contender and one of the best performers relative to his position of the recent half-decade or more.
Of course, that’s a bit of the nature of the position.
Long ago, Gabriel Desjardins showed that in a random sampling of 10 games, a 920 true talent goaltender would be outplayed by a 900 true talent goaltender about 20% of the time.
That’s pretty significant. Connor McDavid doesn’t get outplayed over a 10-game set by Dominic Toninato, maybe ever.
This is not to excuse Hellebuyck. Poor performance is poor performance. The Jets are a team that needs their goalie on more than maybe any other team in the playoffs… maybe.
It’s context to say I’m not as surprised, just disappointed.
How to Fix
There’s not really one quick fix or low-hanging fruit.
The Jets are playing poorly. Their forwards, their defenders, and their goaltender. Their special teams and their even-strength performance.
This is on coaching and it’s on the players.
There’s no “play X instead of Y”. Some of those solutions may tilt things more in the Jets’ favor, but it’s not a cure-all.
There’s no “one weird trick.”
I can point out that given historical performance, the Jets are not playing their 12 best forwards or their 6 best defenders… but on the other hand the ones in their 12 that they are playing, the ones in their 6 that they are playing, and their best player in net are not playing good enough.
The Jets’ seemed trapped in their own zone too often. When they get possession of the puck they are turning it over too often. When they don’t turn it over, they are chipping it off the boards or the glass too often, which ends up right back into the same situation about 40% of the time.
They aren’t suffocating Colorado with an effective forecheck, and they are not disrupting the Avalanche’s transition game. This is what caused the Jets’ to win in the regular season against their opponent.
They are not staying out of the box, and they are not playing well when they are in the box.
Should the Jets play Cole Perfetti? Probably. Should the Jets play Colin Miller? Probably. Should the Jets reduce the role/minutes of Neal Pionk? Probably.
Would those players impact things? Most likely. But unless the Jets other players don’t perform and the coaches don’t adjust, it won’t be enough or matter.
Reader’s Questions
https://twitter.com/HLLivingLoco/status/1784085828056068304
Being a sports fan is simply suffering communally.
https://twitter.com/sharkmeifele/status/1784087721855611120
Whenever things are fairly significant in value, it’s often a mix of multiple variables and factors. The Jets are struggling with Colorado’s forecheck and neutral zone tactics, which means the Jets are predominantly either dumping pucks, which is suboptimal, or when they do get transition they are getting a lot of one-and-done type shots.
Not only this, but the Jets’ are also struggling to return the favor to the Avs.
That said, there are some positives:
There are some flashes of good performances by some players
The Jets are better than this and so we can hope that better comes forward and is enough
The Jets have played better than this against the same Colorado Avalanche
The Jets have gone on losing streaks before only to go on winning streaks thereafter
https://twitter.com/2jordan3/status/1784086577754275907
I agree, he has been. And, I agree, that the Jets should try someone else in that place, whether that’s a decrease in role or a full-on healthy scratch. There are worse outcomes, that maybe in a parallel universe Pionk returns to his level of performance the season the Jets’ played only against Canadian teams.
https://twitter.com/darcrom37/status/1784087149848977625
He’s there, and he’s not playing very well. Nor are others, but Nikolaj Ehlers is certainly one of them. 100%.
https://twitter.com/kkubradio/status/1784087505928638910
Because life is pain.
https://twitter.com/dana_moffatt/status/1784097209597731254
I’m sure there is, but I don’t think it worked out that well for those teams either. Generally speaking, but not always, it’s your top end that floats or sinks you more than your depth. That said, I think Pionk is 3rd, just for semantical arguments sake.
A Little Blurb About Ehlers
As I’ve mentioned, Nikolaj Ehlers has not played well despite being one of the Jets’ best players in the regular season. He’s not played well this series, and historically he’s not played well in the playoffs.
So, how much of this should be something we worry about?
In the short run, a lot. Just like with Connor Hellebuyck or Josh Morrissey, when your best players are not playing at their best, that’s not good.
In the long run, it’s hard for anyone to say with much certainty.
A long time ago, Eric Tulsky —current Assistant GM of the Carolina Hurricanes— wrote an article about clutch performance in the playoffs on a now-defunct website called NHL Numbers. Luckily, I referenced the article a lot in my early days and I had the above graphic saved, so I have some of the information available.
What he did was he took player’s points per game paces in the regular season, adjusted for the different point per game paces in the same playoffs, and compared that to those player’s actual playoff performances.
As you can see on the graph, some players did better than expected, while others did worse.
Then he did some statistical testing. In stats, we have statistical tests to estimate how confident one could be that the differences between the two are due to sample size or randomness/luck versus more deterministic traits not measured, like clutch. The test here was to see how confident we could be that the two results were legitimately different.
The results were that we were not very confident at all. In fact, given how hot and cold players can be in any sample of games played, the playoffs did not look any different.
Moving back to Ehlers, again, he’s played really poorly. His points per game pace is much worse in the playoffs than the regular season. How much of that is randomness, injury, environment, etc. versus skill difference is anyone's guess. People can say they know with certainty, but I’m highly skeptical.
Again, like Hellebuyck this playoffs, that’s not an excuse. He has played bad. That’s the truth. Whether or not we should expect that to persist, that’s tougher to say but I say unlikely.
I also want to point out that both historically and specifically in this playoffs, Kyle Connor has been outscored more than Ehlers per minute of ice time.
That’s not a condemnation of Connor, but it’s interesting to see the dichotomy in excuses and opinions on those two players. And, to be honest, I think Connor has played better than his goal differential this playoffs. He’s been engaged, better at managing the puck, and even actively forechecking.
This is what gets me. The hypocrisy of some vocal fans. I am fine with people having opinions on players. Anyone can think and believe what they want, regardless of it being rational or not. The term fan is short for fanatic, after all. We’re emotionally flawed, irrational beings and sports brings that out more than most things.
That said, it’s extraordinarily hypocritical that I can point out the good and the bad in any particular player, but then receive criticism suggesting that I do not. I don’t have a player I’m routing for or against. I don’t want any player to fail and I’ll point out when they are. Yet, there are some that in the fake spirit of positivity, which is really just them zealotly protecting the decision-makers of their favorite team, who seemingly seem to revel in the poor performance of particular players on their favorite team.
They want me to be wrong, so they celebrate their team having a poor performance. It’s also extraordinarily weird because the games where they say “gotcha” in are usually the same ones where I’m pointing out those players are playing poorly.
All because they think it justifies their favorite team as being infallible and decision-makers as greater than human.
Aside: Financial Literacy Part 3
I have put most of my side discussions on hold for the playoffs, but it’s weird to stop a continuous series partway through.
As discussed previously, financial literacy has been displayed as a large factor in individuals' well-being, happiness, retirement, and other factors. So, I’ve decided to go over the four (point five) questions the same study by Leora Klapper and Annamaria Lusardi, and teach them to you all.
It’s a small droplet in the ocean, but hopefully, it is a way I can help a few of you in a more meaningful way than analyzing a silly sport where we put a frozen biscuit in a net with a stick.
Numeracy: Suppose you need to borrow $100. Which is the lower amount to pay back: $105 or $100 plus 3%?
This is just mathematics. My guess is that the bulk of individuals who read a math heavy sports blog are probably better at math than the average individual.
That said,
$100 + 3% x $100 = $100 + ($100 x 3 / 100) = $103
$103 < $105
So yes, that is proably the easiest question on the test for the average individual reading this. That said, it was still difficult for many:
The previous two questions on risk diversification and inflation were actually easier on average for the major advanced countries.
That surprised me.
A reminder that the average score in Canada for these 4(.5) questions was about 60%. If you’re curious why I keep saying “point five”, you’ll see next week with compound interest.
Jets Playoff Microstatistics
Now let’s look at the microstats I have been tracking manually.
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