One of the great things about being a sports fan is the emotional rollercoaster we ride analyzing the successes and failures of our team. We’re all guilty of vast overreactions, generalizations and faulty reasoning based on a bad game, shift or whenever Tyler Myers is on the ice (kidding, kind of). Dr. Phil will tell you that identifying your specific anxieties is the first step to trying to address them.
As a form of self-therapy and to get a pulse for how we’re all feeling about the Jets on a weekly basis, I present my Weekly Jets Anxiety Check-In using an arbitrary three-level anxiety scale:
Not At All Worried
Moderately Worried
Panic/Losing Sleep Worried
Secondary Scoring – Moderately Worried – The Jets have scored eleven goals in five games. Only seven teams have scored fewer than us to date. Six of our eleven goals have been scored by the Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler, Kyle Connor line. It’s early and a small sample. Hence, why I’m only moderately worried. However, if we’re honest, this problem started in round two of last year’s playoffs when we actually had a true elite second line center (miss you Stastny). Without a true second line center, and with continued scoring droughts for Nik Ehlers, Jack Rosolovic and Mathieu Perreault, I’m moderately worried. Sorry to be border blasphemous here, but, I’m also worried a bit that our golden boy Patrick Laine at present only seems to be able to score on the power play, from the exact same spot on the ice. Am I overreacting? I hope so. But, I’m moderately worried.
Bottom Four Defense – Moderately Worried – Darren wrote an excellent article about whether the Jets should trade Tyler Myers. And while I agree that we likely should, in reality he’s our fourth best (arguably third best depending on which Buff shows up game-to-game) defenseman. Watching the first five games has really illustrated to me that the drop off after Josh Morrissey and Jacob Trouba is big. I like Morrow as a depth player; Ben Chiarot and Dmitri Kulikov … not so much. Is it time to insert Sami Niku and/or Tucker Poolman? In the short term they might not be a huge upgrade. However, they have way more upside and who knows, if given regular playing time maybe they become clearly better options. Look how fast Josh Morrissey adapted. I’m moderately worried if we’re regularly playing Morrow, Ben Chiarot and Dmitri Kulikov.
Goaltending – Not At All Worried – After five games the Jets are top five in terms of goals against per game at 2.2. Connor Hellebuyck has continued his stellar Vezina trophy level play. More importantly, it looks like we have a solid backup goaltender in Laurent Brossoit. He was solid in the pre-season and looked great against the Hurricanes. He’ll likely only play 20 or so games. However, I sleep easier knowing that should he be called upon due to injury (furiously touching wood that it does not happen); I think he could hold down the fort for a short period of time.
Let us know in the comments where you’re at in terms of weekly anxiety level, or any additional areas of concern or non-concern.
