The Winnipeg Jets had a successful start to the post-season by winning both of their hometown matches against the St. Louis Blues, allowing the club to take a firm grip on the series as it switches to Missouri for Games 3 and 4. According to the number crunchers over at MoneyPuck, they are saying the True Northers have an 87.4% chance of making the 2nd round at this point and that could increase to as high as 96.5% if they can walk away victorious on Thursday evening.
Yet head coach Scott Arniel and the Jets’ players can’t let that stat alter the way they have played so far in the playoffs. The reality is that both playoff games were tightly contested and could have easily gone either way, so Winnipeg really need to maintain their shutdown brand of hockey as they head to the Enterprise Center in St. Louis to try to finish the series off.
I have no doubt that coach Jim Montgomery will have his Blues focused & prepared for the 8:30 pm Central puck drop, as St. Louis has played very well in their home arena this year (24-14-3). In fact, the Enterprise Center hasn’t seen a loss from the home club since February 22nd (12 straight wins) when our Winnipeg Jets eked out a shootout victory.
The True North franchise has performed well on the road this season (26-15-0) and will be looking to use their 5 on 5 dominance to continue that trend (out-scoring the Blues 5 to 1). Winnipeg may be happy with that aspect of their game, but there is still a lot of work to do in the special teams department. While I may be okay with the idea of waiting for Gabriel Vilardi & Nikolaj Ehlers to return from injuries to fix the powerplay, a possible solution for the penalty killing woes is more difficult to identify. Hopefully the coaching staff has more ideas than I do, because the differences between Connor Hellebuyck’s save percentages at 5 on 5 (2nd in NHL at .963%) and at 4 on 5 (14th in NHL at .625%) is startling.
Way too early for morning skates to give us an idea of how Winnipeg & St. Louis will line up their players, so we might as well go with PuckPedia’s predictions. I do know that Jets’ forward Rasmus Kupari has been cleared to play, so there is a chance we see the speedy Finn on the ice tonight.
*****
Okay, now it is time to move on to a look at the series’ statistic’s in Arctic Ice Hockey’s Match Up graphic. Winnipeg continues to have an edge in most categories, other than the face-off & special teams areas. Some of the highlights to date include limiting the opposition to less than 20 shots per game and allowing the lowest amount of expected goals in the entire NHL playoffs. Check out the rest of the data and I’ll meet you at the end of the article for my final blurb:
Alright, my paid work day is about to start, so will have to wrap up quickly. With a 2 game lead on the Blues, do I feel ultra confident that the Jets will win tonight? Not exactly, but I am hopeful. What I am impressed with is the way Winnipeg has played defensively in the playoffs so far, especially in the latter parts of games while they are searching for the go ahead goal or just trying to protect a small lead. That being said, I would really appreciate a bit more offense from the True Northers…especially early on in games.
How do you feel our Jets will do tonight? Which Winnipeg players will play key roles for our club in St. Louis? Can the True Northers score a powerplay goal on Thursday?? Lets hear your thoughts in the Comment section….enjoy your day.
Go Winnipeg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
***14 exclamation marks for the 14 wins the Jets need to lift the Cup.***
