Jets likely grounded for the playoffs
Drought continues barring a miracle
WINNIPEG — Ondrej Pavelec doesn’t want to talk about his goaltending any more, at least not on game days.
It’s a late-season coping mechanism the 26-year-old Czech is using to deal with a lot of negative reaction to his part in the Winnipeg Jets’ third consecutive season struggling to squeak into the NHL playoffs.
“I just try to change it a little bit and actually it worked,” he said after Winnipeg’s 2-1 shootout win over the Phoenix Coyotes Tuesday night, suggesting he would be sticking with the no-talking plan. The win kept playoff elimination at bay at least for a few days as the Jets flew back to Winnipeg on Wednesday with five out of a possible 10 points from their road trip.
But, barring a miracle collapse by the teams ahead of them, this season seems destined to end the same as the prior two when the Jets play their last regular-season game April 11 in Calgary — on the outside looking in.
Even with the win Tues- day, Winnipeg (34-33-10) sits seven points back of Phoenix (36-27-13), which is now tied on points but sits behind Dallas in the fight for the eighth and final wild card spot in the Western Conference.
Dallas has two games in hand and Phoenix has one over the Jets, who have just five left to play this season.
Goaltending is only one of the problems the team faces in its third season in Winnipeg, but it’s a big one and not new.
Pavelec has let in the second most goals in the NHL this season at 157, behind only Phoenix’s Mike Smith at 159. His goals-against average is 3.01 and his save percentage of .902 ranks him 63rd among all NHL goalies, though in his defence, he also has faced the 12th most shots in the league.
But over the last three seasons combined, he also leads the league in losses at 73 — his record as of Wednesday was 21-25-7 through 55 games this season — and goals allowed at 467.
New coach Paul Maurice, like Claude Noel before him, has been loath to lay a lot of blame in front of the Winnipeg net when explaining why the Jets cannot clear that playoff line.
“They were as good as we were, the rest of the hockey club,” he said of netminders Pavelec and backup Al Montoya, after a 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on their current road trip.
“This is not at Pavelec’s or Montoya’s feet. They weren’t any worse than anybody else out there.”
He had much the same to say about Pavelec’s role in the team’s collapse in Anaheim Monday night, when the Jets surrendered a four-goal lead to lose 5-4 in overtime.
“He was good last night. He might have been great last night in some of the saves that he made but he doesn’t get the win.”
Pavelec also has the support of his teammates, who admit they don’t do enough sometimes to give him the help he needs.
But goaltending can’t be talked away as one of the problems for the Jets as they try to do things like get their goal differential into positive territory, something a playoff-bound team needs to address.
They have brought that differential down in three seasons. It started at minus-21 in 2011-12, fell to minus-16 last season and is running minus-12 this season. But it isn’t where anyone wants to see it yet.