The Winnipeg Jets opened up the NHL campaign on Friday night with a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful effort as they had to settle for an overtime loss against the Boston Bruins. After practicing at the Hockey for All Centre on Saturday, the True Northers will be heading on the road for another opportunity to earn the first win of the year. Fortunately the trip will be a short one, with a double header booked with the Detroit Red Wings & Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday & Monday.
Five days into the NHL’s schedule, only 4 teams have yet to pick up a point with the Detroit Red Wings being the only team that has played just 1 game. The Calgary Flames & surprisingly the Dallas Stars are winless in 2, while the Chicago Blackhawks claimed an early stake to the league’s basement floor with 3 straight “L’s”.
Now if there is any other team in the league that is in a state of flux worse than our Jets, it just may be the next opponents, the Red Wings. While GM Kevin Cheveldayoff is dealing with the trade demand from his long-time starting goaltender, intern Wings GM Shawn Horcoff inherited the same situation with his #1 center Dylan Larkin and now there are reports out there that unsigned RFA Simon Edvinsson has had enough of waiting & now believes a trade would be better than a new contract.
However, when the puck drops at noon CDT on Sunday, the players on the ice for both teams won’t be thinking about those things and will be focused on earning their clubs the first victory of the new season. While Winnipeg ended up picking up a point in their first contest, Detroit was shutout 2-0 in their home opener by the New York Rangers. So the fans at the Little Caesar’s Arena in Michigan will be hoping for a better outcome when Mark Scheifele & the Jets roll into town.
With not much history from this season to rely on, all that is left is the two teams opening matches, which were quite different from each other. The True Northers were involved in a back & forth affair with the Bruins were the clubs combined for just under 7 Expected Goals (xG’s), while the Wings had a low effort match versus the Rangers where one powerplay goal and an empty netter was all that was to be had (combined 4.7 xG’s). The differences continue when you look at xG’s created, with Winnipeg putting up 3.63 in all situations & 1.70 at 5 on 5 and Detroit wracking up 1.71 in all situations & 1.36 at 5 on 5. Despite creating so few looks in the game versus NY, the Wings did come close to breaking even at 5 on 5 (49.64%) while the Jets lost fairly badly to the Bruins (41.87%). So if you want to take something from that small of a data set, then expect the Red Wings defense to be tough to crack, while the Jets should be better at creating offense.
Winnipeg went 1 for 3 on the PP in their contest, while killing off both of their own penalties. Detroit was unable to score on 2 powerplays and allowed a goal against on 4 PK attempts. Here are the Team Stats from ESPN:
Seven different Jets found the scoresheet in the opener, with sniper Kyle Connor & captain Adam Lowry leading the way with 2 pts. An odd couple at the top of the scoring list, but it gets weirder when you add the fact that low point producers like Dylan DeMelo & Mario Ferraro were among the seven. The others were Gabriel Vilardi, Cole Perfetti, & Morgan Barron, leaving star players like Mark Scheifele & Josh Morrissey without a point.
Rookie Viggo Bjorck came close to scoring in his 1st NHL game….maybe game #2 will be the lucky one? The small & shifty forward certainly didn’t look out of place at that level, showing more fight in him than some of his bigger teammates.
Based on the practice lines for Winnipeg today, I am not expecting any line up changes against Detroit, including in net where Stuart Skinner will probably get his 2nd start. I would suspect that because of the back-to-back situation, Clay Stephenson will get his first start in a Jets’ jersey against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday. Seems like PuckPedia agrees with me, here are the projected starting line ups for Winnipeg & Detroit tonight……….
WINNIPEG JETS LINE UP
*****
DETROIT RED WINGS LINE UP
*****
Winnipeg’s top six performed admirably versus Boston, but the team will need to see a vast improvement from the bottom six if success is going to come frequently. At least the 3rd line can claim that they had to face the B’s most dangerous lines, but the 4th line of Nino Niederreiter, Vladislav Namestnikov, & Alex Iafallo were ineffective against mainly bottom six competition. They will get another chance on Sunday, but I have to think if the result isn’t any different we will see Cole Koepke come out of the press box. More speed on that unit would be a good thing and Cole showed that well in the pre-season & last year.
Despite missing Edvinsson, Detroit’s defense is still pretty solid and when you combine that with veteran goalie John Gibson, the Wings should be tough to score on. It also features a guy drafted by Winnipeg in the 4th round, Ben Chiarot. I’m not sure you can say the same thing about the absence of Larkin and the impact to the forward group. Without their former captain in the line up (has shown up, but is now conveniently injured), former Jet Andrew Copp is bumped up to the top line, which is not a good thing. That leaves the 2nd line center as 21 yr old Emmitt Finnie…and while he did impress with 30 pts as a rookie last year, that might be asking a lot of the former 7th round selection. The wingers are led by stars Lucas Raymond & Alex Debrincat, but also features a 15th overall draft pick in Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and another former Jet in Mason Appleton.
With the early start time, there won’t be any pre-game skate to confirm the starters…will try to leave a post in the Comment section below once I hear official confirmation from Winnipeg’s media department. Guess that leaves me with just this to say…..
Go Winnipeg Jets!!!!!
