As we enter the ninth day of the National Hockey League’s post-season marathon, we have yet to witness a NHL franchise be eliminated from the competition after a couple teams avoided that distinction last night.
The Tampa Bay Lightning finally solved Paul Maurice & the Florida Panthers on Saturday to make the series 3-1, while the New York Islanders needed a double overtime victory to avoid the sweep by the Carolina Hurricanes. Jeremy Swayman continues to have the Toronto Maple Leafs’ number as he picked up his 3rd win of the playoffs, putting the Boston Bruins on the cusp of a series’ win. With Auston Matthews leaving the game early with an illness, Canada’s only hope in the Eastern Conference playoff bracket will be fighting for their survival next game. The other game last night featured the Dallas Stars & Vegas Golden Knights playing Game 3 after last year’s Cup winners swept the opening games in Texas. The Stars jumped out to a 2 goal lead, but the Knights wouldn’t go away easily and tied things up before regulation ended. In only the 4th OT game of this year’s playoffs, Dallas found a way to avoid going down 3-0 when Wyatt Johnston netted his 2nd goal of the game. Does seem like there has been less OT action than usual in 2023-24 with only 4 to date and only one of those requiring more than 1 OT period.
The remaining playoff landscape includes the New York Rangers looking to sweep the Washington Capitals tonight, the Thatcher Demko-less Vancouver Canucks hoping to increase their 2-1 series lead against the Nashville Predators this evening, and the Los Angeles Kings looking to even up their series with the Edmonton Oilers in the 4th game. And that takes us to the final series featuring the Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Avalanche….
Was too lazy to look for the actual stats, but I feel that the Winnipeg Jets have played fairly well during afternoon games this season. So maybe that will give our team a boost to try and even up the series at 2? They could use all the help they can get, since they have probably only played well in 4 out of 9 post-season periods to date. The team has decided to call up Axel Jonsson-Fjallby from the minors and it sounds like he may actually break into the lineup. While his speed on the forecheck will be useful against the Avalanche, I am not sure there is anyone in the Jets’ bottom six that hasn’t been doing their job and AJF isn’t likely to add much offense (couldn’t beat an AHL goalie on 7 shots in the Manitoba Moose’s elimination contest). Everyone but Brenden Dillon was at practice yesterday, so it appears that the Jets are fairly healthy which will give the coaching staff a variety of options at all positions if they want to change things up.
Looking at how the teams have matched this post-season statistically with a MoneyPuck graphic, the Colorado Avalanche have the 4th highest expected goals percentage and 6th highest goals percentage in the playoffs:
On the other hand, the Winnipeg Jets have the 7th worst goals percentage and the 4th worst expected goals percentage in the post-season:
If the Jets hope to avoid going through the exact same fate in back-to-back playoff appearances (winning opening game only to lose the next four games), they really need to get back to basics on Sunday afternoon. The True North franchise showed during the regular season that they can be a very effective shut-down squad when they play Bones’ system properly and now is the time to prove they can do it in the playoffs when the officiating makes it more difficult to provide Connor Hellebuyck clear sightlines.
I’ll end off with a couple final tips….stay out of the box, make the simple play, shoot the puck, & crash the net. If you are going to go down, go down swinging (not literally, but play to the best of their abilities). As I approach the 180 mark for articles at Arctic Ice Hockey this season, I would love to write at least one more recap of a Winnipeg Jets’ victory. After all the hours I spent pumping up this squad in 2023-24, you’d think at least a couple more playoff wins would be a great way for the Jets’ players to show their appreciation. 🙂
GO Winnipeg GO!!
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