Scott Arniel’s first game stepping in as the Winnipeg Jets’ interim head coach saw his team facing off against the division rival St. Louis Blues. In my opinion, the two teams have different deficiencies to work on in the early parts of this season. The Jets have been able to score at a league average pace, so their main issue is defensive play, noted by Winnipeg’s rather large 4.2 goals against per game. Meanwhile, St. Louis has done all right defensively to start off (2.75 GAA), but are struggling to put pucks into the net (2.25 goals for per game). Seemed like an ideal situation for the Blues to fix their scoring woes, but anything can happen in an inter-division game. Let’s see how it played out…
The opening frame started with some sloppy play, resulting in a lot of stops and starts. Winnipeg & St. Louis traded opportunities when Lowry caused a turnover to set up Niederreiter for a shot and then Hellebuyck flew across the net to just get enough of a 1 timer from the slot. The Jets had an early powerplay, but couldn’t do much with it and the teams had only combined for 8 shots at the midway point of the first. Things started to open up in the second half and Binnington & Hellebuyck had to make some big saves to keep the game tied. The period ended with a good cycle shift by the second line, followed quickly by one last push for offence by the top trio of Connor, Scheifele, & Iafallo.
First Period Stats: Score: 0 – 0 tie , shots 9 to 6 for the Jets, 50.2% Deserve To Win for the Jets, Expected Goals – all situations (0.81-0.75 STL), & 5 on 5 (0.81-0.56 STL)
Winnipeg started the 2nd out strong when Iafallo had a quality look from the high slot before setting up his linemate Connor for a chance. The second line followed up with an offensive zone shift that saw Perfetti set up Namestnikov for a shot that forced Binnington to make a quick blocker save. As that shift neared its end, DeMelo cycled the puck along the left boards to find Perfetti waiting behind the net. The youngster made a quick backhand no look pass that found Gustafsson in the slot as he was coming on from a line change. The Swede one timed the pass and the Blues’ goalie had no chance, as Gus scored his first regular season goal in 4 years to give the Jets a 1 to 0 lead three minutes into the 2nd. Coach Arniel tapped the 3rd line to follow up after taking the lead and it turned out to be a brilliant decision. In almost mirror-image of the Jets’ opening goal, Pionk cycled the puck along the boards and found Lowry behind the net. The captain made a nice dish and found Appleton out front, allowing him to 1 time the pass into St. Louis’ net. 2 to 0 for Winnipeg with a pair of goals in 18 seconds. The Jets kept up the pressure on the Blues until the middle of the 2nd, when the visiting squad started to control a bit more of the play. Hellebuyck was called on multiple times to keep the game scoreless, including a clear cut breakaway after a DeMelo miscue at the offensive blueline. St. Louis finally got their first powerplay of the game, but Winnipeg killed off the attempt, dropping the Blues PP to 0 for 12 on the season. They got another chance shortly after when Samberg caught a player with a high-stick and this time they made it count. A deflection goal into the top corner by Buchnevich from the high slot, a thing of absolute beauty that Hellebuyck had little to no chance on. The Jets had some good push-back shifts to finish the period and they went into the dressing rooms with a one goal lead.
After Two Periods Stats Score: 2 to 1 for the Jets , shots 22 to 16 for the Jets, 57.4% Deserve to Win for the Blues, Expected Goals – all situations (2.03-1.76 STL) & 5 on 5 (1.38-1.28 STL)
The St. Louis Blues came out flying to start the 3rd, eventually forcing Winnipeg to take a penalty to break up a quality scoring opportunity. The Jets did a good job in stopping the Blues from setting up and even drew an interference call to bring on a short span of 4 on 4 play. Winnipeg used the open ice to their advantage when Connor and Scheifele found themselves on a 2 on 1. KFC used his center as a decoy before sniping a shot above the blocker and into the top corner to give Winnipeg a 3 to 1 lead. The squads traded inefficient powerplay chances and the Jets were doing much better with their gaps in the 3rd, frustrating a lot of the Blues attempts at creating shots. Things were going pretty well for a team defending a lead until the Blues pulled their goalie for the extra attacker. Morrissey lost the puck in his own end, allowing a St. Louis player to attempt a pass in front of the net. DeMelo was there to break up the connection, however the puck bounced to a wide open Thomas, allowing him to shoot it into a wide open cage. Winnipeg was able to spend some shifts in the offensive zone, keeping Binnington in his net until 1:30 was left on the clock. No last minute heroics for the visitors on Tuesday though, as Scheifele made a nice play to bounce the puck high off the boards by a couple of Blues trying to maintain the offensive blueline. He then drew the remaining defenders to him before dishing off to Barron for the empty netter.
FINAL SCORE: WINNIPEG JETS 4 ST. LOUIS BLUES 2
SHOTS: WINNIPEG JETS 30 ST. LOUIS BLUES 20
Game Observations:
- The Winnipeg Jets improve to a 3-3 record, bringing them closer to the middle of the Central Division standings. Currently they are tied with the Nashville Predators and Arizona Coyotes (though both are playing as I am writing this).
- Two straight games with only two goals allowed per game…that is a plus for the Jets, but the goaltender has had to play a larger role than the coaching staff would really want. Way too many defensive miscues that lead to deadly chances against. Nate Schmidt and Dylan DeMelo both gifted St. Louis’ Jordan Kyrou with breakaways tonight.
- Connor Hellebuyck only stopped 18 of 20 shots tonight, but at least 8 of those were on high danger attempts.
- Loving the chemistry between Vladislav Namestnikov and Cole Perfetti on the second line. Don’t think the unit has had all three players in top form at the same time yet, as Nik Ehlers was pretty invisible in this one (only stat he had in 14:49 of ice-time was one missed shot attempt).
- I always enjoyed watching David Gustafsson in his seasons with the Manitoba Moose, where, believe it or not, he was actually a decent scorer. After netting a couple in the pre-season, the Swede has to be relieved that he was able to get his 1st NHL regular season goal in four seasons (since the year following him being drafted by Winnipeg). Really hope that with improved linemates, the Gus Bus can get things going in the big league.
- The penalty killing units were better tonight, but still allowed a team that hadn’t scored a PP goal in 11 attempts to go 1 for 4. With Scott Arniel back in the fold this year, there hasn’t been any changes to the PK coaches but the performance has been far from last season’s top 10 finish.
- The Jets ended up getting a lot of shots from unexpected sources against the Blues, with Alex Iafallo and Nino Niederreiter leading the team in shots with 4.
- Morgan Barron and Gustafsson also tested Binnington 3 times each. It is nice to see Winnipeg finally getting some offense from the bottom six.
- Nate Schmidt. Not sure what more I can say about his play and it pains me constantly to think that the Jets should have the younger & much cheaper Johnny Kovacevic playing in his spot. Not sure why the organization didn’t feel that his defensive game was NHL-ready, it seemed clear to me from watching him on the Manitoba Moose. It’s not like he was a Sami Niku, or even a Leon Gawanke or Declan Chisholm that have question marks about playing in their own ends. Well, enough of that side rant, lets look at the advanced stats.
- MoneyPucks Stats: St. Louis Blues 57.7% Deserve to Win, St. Louis Blues 2.87-2.2 in expected goals overall, and the Blues also won the expected goals at 5 on 5 (1.88-1.57).
Well, the home town team managed to get back to .500 with a 3-3 record in front of a Canada Life Centre filled to 75% of capacity. It was nice to hear ownership shoot down any talk of the Winnipeg Jets being moved for a second time, but on the other hand, what else are they really going to say?
NEXT GAME: Winnipeg Jets @ Detroit Red Wings – Thursday, October 26th @ 6:00 pm Central
Random thought of the night….I am getting some serious “fan-envy” of New Jersey Devil fans. The team has so many promising young players and their PP has been deadly this season, but it’s Jack Hughes who I think those Devil fans will enjoy the most (14 pts in 5 games).
