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Winnipeg Jets 2012-13 Season Review, Part 1: Team Statistics

The regular season is over, Kevin Chevaldayoff has given his end of the season press conference, and the players have dispersed from Winnipeg to warmer spring cities. It’s a perfect time to review the season, delving into what the results on the ice say about this season’s Winnipeg Jets. Here’s a look at where the Winnipeg Jets came from and where are they going.

This five part series will start by looking at the team as a whole, and will finish off by looking at the team as a sum of its parts.

Even Strength – Emphasis on 5v5
SF/60 GF/60 SH% SA/60 GA/60 SV% FenwickClose
2012-13 28.2 (15) 2.5 (10) 8.7 (10) 29.7 (17) 2.7 (23) 0.908 (24) 49.71 (16)
2011-12 30.1 (11) 2.4 (14) 8.1 (20) 28.1 (11) 2.6 (26) 0.912 (24) 51.05 (11)
2010-11 30.4 (11) 2.2 (24) 7.4 (26) 31.4 (24) 2.8 (26) 0.911 (23) 49.05 (21)

*Data is from behindthenet.ca and numbers in paranthesis are position in NHL for the individual statistic

Shots for, shots against, and Fenwick have dropped down a tad since the Jets 2.0 first season, although overall still much better than in Atlanta. It is interesting to note that Winnipeg has been playoff calibre in these statistical measurements which are all strong predictors of success, with the only miss being by a single placement.

Offensively, Atlanta/Winnipeg has always been able to create above par, despite what many fans and MSM alike claim the Jets’ #1 issue may be. Curious how a team that adds a “shoot-first” player like Olli Jokinen actually decreases in shots… maybe possession does affect the number of scoring opportunities??? Luckily for the Jets, the top line’s slightly inflated SH% this season helped hide some of the shooting drop.

Defensively speaking, things haven't been as stable for the franchise, with the shots against taking a bit of a step back. It is really odd that the Jets' goals against rank improved, though that's probably due more to other teams' failures than the Jets' own success. This season, many of the more defensive teams that excel in reducing shots (ex: NJD, LAK, and STL) had difficulty in net while the less defensive teams had stronger goaltending (TOR, BUF, and EDM), skewing the league's GA/60 distribution… but, save percentage is a team stat, right?…

Speaking of which, note the great consistency in save percentage that this team has sustained over the past few seasons. Those blaming the number and extent of Jets' defensive breakdowns should note no change and then ask fans that have followed the team from its Atlanta days if they think they are currently as terrible defensively as their previous run-and-gun system.

Although the sample size is small, the Winnipeg Jets were 1st in the league in 4v4 goal differential, which came in part from a league-best shots for and fifth in shots against in such situations. Whether this is due to sample size or points to truer capabilities remains to be seen.

Power Play – Emphasis on 5v4

SF/60 GF/60 SH%
2012-13 44.8 (22) 5.0 (23) 11.0 (21)
2011-12 45.6 (21) 6.2 (10) 13.5 (5)
2010-11 49.4 (15) 6.1 (11) 12.4 (11)

*Data is from behindthenet.ca and numbers in paranthesis are position in NHL for the individual statistic

Well that’s not very pretty and I’m sure most were expecting something like this. Last season, the Jets’ difficulty on the man-advantage was masked by some lucky shooting percentages, thanks in part to Tim Stapleton. It appears that Olli Jokinen at the point actually wasn’t the cause of a defunct power-play, although we should ask why he wasn’t placed down low where he produced with far greater success in Calgary. In actuality, the Jets have difficulty putting shots on net; this is partially due to difficulty in gaining clear zone entry and also due to an inability in gaining higher scoring chances with rebounds.

[Post-Publish Addition] It should be noted that at around the halfway mark in the season the Jets 5v4 SF/60 was at 38.6, which would indicate that the team significantly improved over the second half, posting around 50.6 SF/60 — which would place in the top third of seasonal NHL average–. It would be interesting to see if this improvement was more due to the Jets' getting into Pearn's new system — like with the penalty kill — or if this was from Enstrom coming back from his injury. [Thanks to Alex Hemsky for pointing this out]

An improvement in the Jets power-play system could push Winnipeg over the bubble. While Philadelphia has shown us that having a successful power-play won't guarantee success, Washington has shown that it can mask a team that is actually pretty crappy at 5v5.

Penalty Kill – Emphasis on 4v5

SA/60 GA/60 SV%
2012-13 46.7 (15) 6.4 (18) 0.863 (19)
2011-12 51.4 (20) 6.9 (24) 0.865 (22)
2010-11 52.5 (21) 7.9 (27) 0.849 (27)

*Data is from behindthenet.ca and numbers in paranthesis are position in NHL for the individual statistic

The penalty kill took a large step forward this season. The season started off rough, with Noel blaming on-the-fly system changes, while ignoring the at-the-time league’s worst PK SV% from the tandem of Ondrej Pavelec and Al Montoya.

While a more aggressive system has led to more success, Noel changing the main penalty kill forwards this season also caused huge strides. This season, Jim Slater and Tanner Glass were replaced by Bryan Little and Andrew Ladd. It should also be noted that Alexander Burmistrov has landed in the top 15 for RelCorsi shot differential for the second season in a row for all NHL forwards with at least a 1:30 of 4v5 TOI per a game.

Summary

The Jets have made great strides over the last two seasons, pushing almost all of their statistical measurements into playoff caliber territory. The two most glaring weaknesses that need improvement are getting more pucks to the net on the power play and improving the team's save percentage in both 5v5 and 4v5 situations.

Next up, a deeper look into the Jets Top 6 forwards…

As always, feel free to comment below your thoughts!

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