CONTENTION IS ON JETS’ RADAR
Winnipeg holding its own this season in NHL’s tough Central Division
I ran into Winnipeg Jets chairman Mark Chipman on a flight to Minneapolis Monday and he said exactly what I was thinking.
If the Jets play the way they did the last two games, they are going to be awfully tough for any team to beat.
That includes the Nashville Predators, who appear to be the class of the NHL’s Western Conference now.
The Jets played a terrific brand of hockey in the back-to-back games over the weekend against the powerful St. Louis Blues.
They generated an impressive 94 shots on goal in the two games against a team that averaged fewer than 29 shots against per game and is one of the stingiest defensive squads in the game.
They outplayed St. Louis for 120 minutes. The only St. Louis player they weren’t better than was goaltender Carter Hutton, who stopped 48 shots in a 2-0 Blues win Saturday in St. Louis.
The Jets did not get discouraged, however, and came out with the same intensity, the same physicality and the same ability to generate offensive chances, while skating to a 4-0 win Sunday in Winnipeg.
Led by impressive sophomore defenceman Josh Morrissey — who did his best Duncan Keith impression Sunday by making several outstanding defensive plays, laying out big hits, scoring a goal and adding an assist — the Jets showed the Blues they are legitimate contenders for top spot in the wildly competitive Central Division.
It would be almost impossible for any team to play that way for 82 games, but the Jets have already shown an ability to do it relatively consistently.
Which brings us back to Tuesday’s game against the Predators, a team that made it to the Stanley Cup final last spring. They’ve been stellar again this year and were the better team when the Jets visited Nashville last month.
Like the Blues, the Preds are a team the Jets are going to have to beat to make any noise in the standings and during the playoffs. Nashville is tops in the conference with 46 points, the Jets at 43. Despite the fact they’re 7-1-2 in their last 10, the Predators haven’t managed to separate from the Central Division pack and would surely love to put some distance between themselves, the Blues and the Jets.
The Jets come into Nashville on a cold streak on the road. They are 0-4-2 in their last six road games, have been outscored 24-10 over that span and they’ve given up at least three goals in five of the six games. Their power play over the six games was a woeful 2-for-25 and their penalty kill just 17-for25.
With a 6-3-1 record against the Central Division, the Jets are holding their own, but as evidenced by the intensity of the St. Louis games, these mean more than others.
And yet they’re only a few losses away from being close to the playoff line.
Wins on the road and within the division will go a long way. What has held them back so far has been a series of lapses.
When they’ve had off nights, they’ve really been off. In their 10 losses in regulation this season, the Jets have been outscored 5018. By contrast, they’ve outscored the opposition 83-28 in their 19 wins.
Some of the games were closer than the score indicated, but for the most part the Jets either win big or they lose big.
Not one of the outright losses was decided by a single goal and only three of them were decided by as few as two goals. Only four of their wins have been decided by one goal.
Almost all of their one-goal games have gone to overtime and you can’t help notice how much better their record would look if they weren’t 0-5 in 3-on-3 extra time.
So here’s the checklist for a team that has done many things right to this point in the season:
Win a few more games on the road, win in the division and cut out the lapse games. Oh, and maybe pop in an overtime goal or two.
After Nashville, the Jets will have a couple more tough matchups — against the Bruins in Boston Thursday and in Brooklyn, N.Y., against Andrew Ladd and the New York Islanders Saturday afternoon.
A couple of wins in the three games would sure look good heading into the short Christmas break.
Keep playing the way they did Saturday and Sunday and it’s going to be a very happy holiday.