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Game Recap: Wild @ Jets

Oct 13, 2024; Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN; Winnipeg Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck (37) deflects a Minnesota Wild shot during the third period at Canada Life Centre. Mandatory Credit: Terrence Lee-Imagn Images

I know that this is getting up quite late, but between the turkey hangover and some issues with one of my knees, my holiday Monday hasn’t gotten off to a great start. Fairly certain that I tore my MCL, as I had already done that once in my final year of Junior hockey so know what it feels like. As a 21 year old, I didn’t mind sustaining the injury while participating in a sport, but it is a bit more embarrassing to do it playing with your cats in the backyard. The joys of getting older, I guess.

The Winnipeg Jets remained undefeated as they prepared to face off against the Minnesota Wild on Sunday. The True North franchise got a break with Minny missing a couple key pieces (Eriksson-Ek & Spurgeon), so lets find out if they could take advantage of that.

Coach Scott Arniel kept the same deployment for his players versus the Wild (courtesy of PuckPedia):

Sunday’s contest saw Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck in the crease against Minnesota’s Filip Gustavsson and both masked men have played well early in the NHL season. Hellebuyck had been stellar in two starts (.982 save %), while Gustavsson allowed only 2 goals against in his sole start (.939 save %).

RECAP

Despite the Jets controlling the puck a lot to start the contest, it was the Wild who broke the deadlock when defenseman Jake Middleton beat Connor Hellebuyck with a shot four minutes in. The Minnesota point shot did have a high screen, yet there was plenty of time for Bucky to track it on route but he seemed unable to pick it up. Fortunately, Winnipeg’s tender returned to his Vezina form for the rest of the contest. That allowed the Jets to remain in the game until some late period heroics knotted things up at 1. With only 2.9 seconds left on the clock and an offensive zone face-off, Scott Arniel pulled Bucky for the extra attacker. Big Adam Lowry cleanly won the draw and that gave Mark Scheifele the space to step into a one-timer that blew by Filip Gustavsson with only 0.7 seconds left in the 1st period.

No further scoring occurred in the 2nd & 3rd periods, despite Winnipeg out-shooting Minnesota 33-26 when the third frame ended. While the Jets did control the puck for more time than the Wild did, both squads had high danger opportunities to break the deadlock. The True North franchise did try some last second heroics in the 3rd as well, when Gabriel Vilardi & Kyle Connor completed a give & go as they raced up the ice. After getting the puck back from Connor, Vilardi tried to find Scheifele at the backdoor, but #55’s stick was being held by Minny’s d-man. That resulted in Winnipeg having a man-advantage as the game went to overtime…

With 4 skaters against 3, Winnipeg won the opening face-off but things almost went wrong when Scheifele lost the puck at the opponent’s blueline. Since his linemate Connor wasn’t interested in back-checking, #55 dug in to help break up a potential short-hand rush. The Jets then went on the attack in the Wild zone, controlling the puck around the perimeter before a Scheifele pass pierced the Wild’s PK box to set up Connor for the game winner. This time KFC didn’t one-time the blast, rather he delayed just a bit before firing the perfect shot over the near-side shoulder of Gustavsson.

FINAL STATS

Shots: 34-27 WPG / Hits: 16-14 WPG / Face-Offs: 50.8% WPG / Expected Goals: 2.55 WPG to 2.11 MIN

MoneyPuck’s Deserve to Win: 58.4% WPG / High Danger Chances: 8 to 7 WPG

SCORING SUMMARY from ESPN

SHOT CHART from MoneyPuck & NaturalStatTrick

ADVANCED STATS from MoneyPuck & NaturalStatTrick

ADVANCED STATS for Line Combos from MoneyPuck & NaturalStatTrick

If you would like to dive deeper into the game’s stats, follow the links below to the game pages:

MoneyPuck: Minnesota Wild vs. Winnipeg Jets – Sunday October 13 2024 – MoneyPuck.com

NaturalStatTrick: Minnesota Wild @ Winnipeg Jets, 2024-10-13 (naturalstattrick.com)

BOJA’s Observations:

  • Other than the one that squeaked by his blocker side, Connor Hellebuyck was perfect against the Minnesota Wild, stopping 26 of 27 shots for a .963 save percentage. In case you are keeping track, that is 81 of 83 shots Bucky has denied this season so far (.976%).
  • Once again, it was the Jets’ bottom six carrying the team at 5 on 5, however on the defensive side things flipped as the duo of Dylan Samberg & Neal Pionk were advanced stat darlings (81.1 xG%) versus Minny.
  • The top line of Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, & Gabriel Vilardi were much more effective at producing offensive chances on Sunday (.658 xGF), but they still were giving up way too much the other way (.827 xGA). Scheifele had just reached the 300 goal mark and the contest versus the Wild represented the center’s 800th career NHL game.
  • I guess if you are looking for signs of improvement from the 2nd line of Nikolaj Ehlers, Cole Perfetti, & Vladislav Namestnikov (27% xG), then you might be encouraged by the fact that they were at least attempting more shots than their opponents (55% Corsi & 64.3% Fenwick). The lack of dangerous scoring chances created by the trio is eventually going to cost Winnipeg a win, but apparently the coaching staff is happy with the other 3 lines so things will remain the same…for the time being.
  • Winnipeg’s special teams have actually been special this season. The Jets’ powerplay has gone 3 for 8 after the OT winner on Sunday for an impressive 42.9% success rate. The penalty killers have been even better, denying opponents on 5 straight opportunities.

With the win, the Winnipeg Jets remain near the top of the NHL and will have some practice time to hone their skills before getting back to action on Friday. By the way, 2024-25 has seen our franchise make history by starting off with a 3-0 record for the first time as the reborn Jets in 2011.

UP NEXT: San Jose Sharks (0-1-1) @ Winnipeg Jets (3-0-0) – Friday, October 18th @ 7 pm CST

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