WINNIPEG — Judging by Gabriel Vilardi‘s demeanour post-game, you wouldn’t have known that the Winnipeg Jets had just upgraded to 13-1-0 on the year.
The bar is raised when you’ve got Stanley Cup aspirations. And despite defeating the Colorado Avalanche — who spanked them in the first round last spring — 1-0 on Thursday, it’s hard to be happy about collecting two points after being severely outplayed and hanging Connor Hellebuyck out to dry.
“We got the best goalie in the world, but we can’t play like that and expect to win very many games,” Vilardi said.
In what felt like deja vu from last year’s playoffs, the Jets had no answer once Colorado started building momentum. After a first period that was spearheaded by a commanding start — with Vilardi scoring the eventual game-winner just over a minute into the game and Winnipeg outshooting Colorado 5-0 through the first 7:26 of the period — everything crumbled in the second period. Colorado willed their style of play over the Jets’. Just like we saw in April.
In the final two periods, the Jets were out-chanced 29-9 during five-on-five play in what was a perfect storm of things gone wrong.
“We didn’t break the puck out real well,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “We didn’t get through the neutral zone. We turned a lot of pucks over through the neutral zone, and then we didn’t have that extended (offensive) zone time.”
Time and time again, Colorado entered the offensive zone with ease — putting Winnipeg on their heels — and set up shop. The Jets botched zone exits, lost several key one-on-one battles and gave Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen the type of real estate that superstars usually capitalize on. Their puck management shot them in the foot, too.
“It was a lot of areas on the ice. It wasn’t just in the offensive zone, or in the neutral zone,” Arniel said of the poor puck management. “We were making plays that ended up on their stick. And then, to compound it, how we defended against it wasn’t how we usually play with our structure.”
Sure, they’ve only lost one game, but let’s not pretend this is the first time we’ve seen Winnipeg look like a deer caught in headlights against playoff-caliber teams. They looked just as overwhelmed defending the rush throughout the majority of their 4-3 win over the Seattle Kraken on Oct. 24. And they were shelled in their own zone in a similar fashion when the Toronto Maple Leafs beat them 6-4 on Oct. 28.
For a team that has so much wiggle room in the standings (if they went .500 for the rest of the year, they’d still finish with 94 points), one could argue that process is far more important than results. And that type of showing against a potential playoff opponent in Colorado shouldn’t be taken with a grain of salt.
Other Takeaways
• Scott Arniel says the Jets weren’t looking for retribution against Colorado… although Hellebuyck sure looked like he was. The 31-year-old, who recorded his second straight shutout, robbed Nathan MacKinnon of several grade-A chances and appeared completely composed throughout. He stole the game.
• For all that went wrong in that game defensively, the Jets defencemen deserve credit for limiting the amount of net-front deflections and traffic in front of Hellebuyck. That was the crux of the two-time Vezina winner’s difficult playoff showing last spring (.870 save percentage).
“It’s a part of the game you really can’t work on, as you just never know what’s going to happen out there,” Hellebuyck said when asked about combatting incoming tipped shots. “That’s what the guys in front of me did a really good job of: eliminating those high tips and eliminating those shots from the point, or at least giving me lanes to see the puck.”
• If there’s one thing we’ve learnt about Scott Arniel, it’s that he’s not afraid to make in-game adjustments. Last spring, Rick Bowness kept Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele and Vilardi together, even though they couldn’t get out of the defensive zone to save their life. In the third period, Arniel swapped Connor for Nikolaj Ehlers on the top line. And this time, one could argue the move was more about getting Vladislav Namestnikov and Cole Perfetti going, rather than Scheifele and Vilardi. It worked. Namestnikov and Connor generated a two-on-one chance and Ehlers and Scheifele also produced a Grade-A chance of their own.
• Speaking of another small positive, Dylan Samberg really embodies the ‘bigger, faster, stronger’ cliche this year. He’s not getting beat off the rush — there was a second-period sequence where he kept up with MacKinnon while the star forward was streaking into the zone — and he’s playing with more ‘jam’ down low. His decision-making with the puck is a lot better, too. He knows he’s not the best puck handler, and instead of forcing plays, he’s displayed some poise by deferring to safer plays, be it a rim out along the wall or a chip.
• Samberg’s team-high nine five-on-five takeaways is tied for ninth among all defencemen this season, according to NaturalStatTrick.
