After taking a bit of time away from the world of the Winnipeg Jets, I have found myself drifting back to the advanced stats from the 2024-25 National Hockey League playoffs more and more. Most often, it is to try and see if the numbers agreed when some other Jets’ fan posted a comment online about a particular player or a certain aspect of Winnipeg’s play in the post-season. Over time, these little researching adventures have allowed me to see most of the good, the meh, and the ugly from the True Northers in the playoffs….so why not break out my Ph.D. in Hockey Viewing to take you through an autopsy of the Jets’ untimely death (okay, being eliminated isn’t that drastic).
So join Dr. BigOl’JetAirliner as we begin the post-mortem on the Winnipeg Jets 2024-25 campaign….Part 1 will include a look at the franchise’s history before diving into an in-depth review of the Winnipeg Jets-St. Louis Blues opening round series. Part 2 will be posted a couple days later and will cover the Round 2 action, briefly discuss which players had good or bad playoffs, and then I will finally outline my “medical” conclusions on what caused the True Norther’s ultimate demise.
Patient’s Prior History:
When the NHL franchise came into existence in 1999, it was initially located in the city of Atlanta and had a totally different nickname in the form of the Thrashers. As is typically expected for an expansion team (at least in those times), the first three campaigns showed the need for a lot more development if the club hoped to compete with the good franchises in the league (earned 39, 60, & 54 pts respectively). Atlanta did take another step towards becoming a playoff team in the next two seasons (74 & 78 pts) before they really showed great signs of progress coming out of the 2004-05 NHL lockout. The Thrashers fell just 2 points short of qualifying for their first post-season with 90 pts on the season that year, but then finally reached their goal in 7th campaign when they led the SouthEast Division with 97 points. While Atlanta did make the dance, things didn’t go well for the club as they were swept by the New York Rangers. Unfortunately, that was the pinnacle for the Georgia-based franchise, as their point totals plummeted in their final four seasons (76, 76, 83, & 80 pts respectively).
Those poor results led to the hockey club opting to relocate to Canada and change their names to the Winnipeg Jets for the 2011-12 NHL season, hoping for better franchise health in the True North. Initially, the move to a new environment didn’t help much as they continued to miss the playoffs for the next 3 campaigns, (84, 51 in a shortened regular season, & 84 pts respectively). In 2014-15, the Winnipeg hockey club had their best season since moving to Canada, when they amassed 99 pts to take the Western Conference’s final wildcard spot. This post-season appearance disappointedly ended the same as Atlanta’s only attempt, this time a sweep at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks. The Jets went back to the drawing board for a couple more seasons (78 & 87 pts) before they set a franchise record for most points in a year (114) while winning the first 2 playoff series of their existence.
The following 6 seasons showed that the Winnipeg Jets’ health had improved enough to almost be a perennial playoff team (qualified 5 times). Unfortunately, the squad wasn’t able to take the next step and continued to get knocked out in the first round of those post-seasons. And that brings us almost up to date and in the most recent NHL regular season, the True Northers found themselves in the best shape of their lives. The 2024-25 campaign concluded with the Jets sitting atop all the other 31 teams with an impressive 56-22-4 record…and those 116 points was a franchise high water mark for most in one season. And that brings us to the beginning of the NHL playoffs, when the Presidents’ Trophy winners were matched up with a familiar opponent in the St. Louis Blues.
However, before we move on to see what went right or wrong in the post-season, it must be noted that the Winnipeg Jets weren’t exactly playing consistently at their best level in the weeks leading up to Round 1. There were definitely signs that the True Northers were ready for the elite competition of the playoffs too, especially during great performances when they knocked off quality opposition in the final month like the Washington Capitals (3-2 OT), the New Jersey Devils (4-0), the Vegas Golden Knights (4-0), & the Dallas Stars (4-0). Three shutouts in the final weeks of the campaign was also a positive omen, but things weren’t all good for Connor Hellebuyck, as he had also allowed 4 goals against in back-to-back starts during that span. Some people say that Bucky wasn’t the same after the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, but his 2.05 GAA over the last 19 starts to end the year doesn’t show any noticeable chinks in his armour from that statistical category. Yet, there were also 5 starts that saw the opponents net 4 or more goals against Winnipeg with Hellebuyck between the pipes, so his level of consistency was a potential issue heading into the playoffs. Other possible issues for the Jets included the NHL’s best powerplay in the league struggling to score with the man-advantage over the final month (in the end, barely hanging on to their #1 ranking), while the team also had to contend with untimely late-season injuries to key players like Nikolaj Ehlers & Gabriel Vilardi. Obviously, missing two of six pieces at the top of your forward line up is hardly ideal….so keep those things in mind as we dive into the opening round.
Playoff Findings:
Winnipeg Jets VS St. Louis Blues:
There was quite the gap in the standings between 1st place Winnipeg and 8th place St. Louis (20 pts), yet the Central Division rival Blues had been one of the league’s better squads since the mid-season break. That made the experts predict a hard fought series and they were certainly correct as the two teams put up an insane amount of bodychecks throughout the 7 games.
As outlined above by ESPN, the Jets & Blues went the full 7 games to determine the winner of the opening round series, with each squad picking up victories in their home barns. St. Louis’ head coach Jim Montgomery had a clear plan to deal with the Presidents Trophy winners….and that was play the body hard and hope that a relentless forecheck would cause Winnipeg issues with defensive zone exits. The players certainly bought into the concept and especially paid particular attention to Mark Scheifele & Josh Morrissey when it came to playing the body. The True Northers responded in kind though and ended up throwing more hits than their opponents (yet it was the Blues’ players that were more willing to cross the line when it came to the legality of the bodychecks).
The Winnipeg Jets showed some resiliency in this series, rarely giving up when they were behind in games and that ultimately paid off with the last second game tying goal in Game 7. Head coach Scott Arniel was called on often to make adjustments to his roster due to injuries or in search of better line combinations to ignite a potential comeback and I think neither franchise could claim a true coaching edge in the series.
Time for the good folks over at MoneyPuck to provide us with some graphics to enjoy, outlining how the Expected Goals Differential (xG) looked for each game of the Winnipeg-St. Louis series in all situations and at 5 on 5.
Test Results: (all situations)
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The xG diagram for all situations displays a curve that accurately reflects the ups & down of the Round 1 series. Interestingly, based purely on the xG stat, the Winnipeg Jets should have won the series in Game 6 instead of needing Cole Perfetti’s late game heroics to force overtime in the deciding Game 7 match (a game the Jets lost the xG battle).
The True Northers were clearly the better team at creating offense in Round 1, having an advantage of at least 1 full expected goal in 4 of the 7 matches. Even when the Blues won the xG battle, they did by less than a full goal but that can partly be explained by St. Louis sitting back with big leads in their home wins.
Test Results: (5 on 5)
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When you compare the two xG diagrams, you might notice how the last 3 games look a lot different than the all situations graph. The special teams played a much bigger role in the franchises creating offense, but the even strength play was fairly even over those 3 contests.
During the regular season, Winnipeg typically created 2.15 xGF per game at 5 on 5 while allowing 1.92 xGA….so let us compare how that looks in the playoffs. Well, the Jets’ offensive scoring opportunities ended up dropping slightly in the opening round (down to 1.92 xGF/gm), yet their defense limited dangerous scoring chances against better than during the regular season (down to 1.84 xGA/gm).
Our final “test result” is a breakdown of a bunch of statistical categories broken down in a per game format…..including Goals Scored (G), Shots Taken (SH), Expected Goals (xG), Even Strength Goals (ESG), Power Play Goals (PPG), and Save Percentage (Save%). The final column represents the goaltenders’ total Goals Saved Above Expected rating after the full series was completed.
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Starting off with the positive vital signs for the Jets in Round 1, the franchise did very well in two of the categories…Shots Allowed & Expected Goals Against. Both of those playoff numbers are well below what Winnipeg allowed during the regular season and the xG’s against numbers dropped from 2.82 to 2.63 per game.
Another two of the stats show our club putting up similar numbers when compared to the regular season, like their Goals For being in the ballpark (3.37 to 3.00) and their xGF being almost identical (3.14 to 3.16).
Unfortunately, the remaining categories show various levels of unhealthiness in the True Norther’s performance. The goals scored by the Blues was more than 1.5 goals per game higher than the regular season (2.33 to 3.86) and that is a symptom of the horrific ratings in the goaltending categories for the Jets. Finally, another concerning symptom was reflected in the powerplay’s results, but not when Winnipeg’s was on the ice because they came close to matching their regular season average (0.77 to 0.72 PPG per game). But the Jets’ penalty kill was the problematic part of the special teams, allowing the PPG against per game to increase from 0.50 to 0.86 against St. Louis.
Round 1 Findings:
Overall, the Winnipeg Jets didn’t play that badly in Round 1 so most parts of the franchise’s health were looking pretty good going into the next round. The obvious cause for concern was the play of goalie Connor Hellebuyck, as that could also explain some of the other negative symptoms like allowing more goals against than is normal at even strength & on the penalty kill.
The expected Vezina Trophy winner had a fabulous season through 82 games, getting an NHL leading +39.6 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAE) rating and the 2nd highest Save Percentage rating of .925% to go along with his franchise record 47 wins. That didn’t carry over to the first round though, as Bucky only had one game with a GAA average higher than .900% and one with a GSAE in the positive numbers. Hellebuyck finished the series with a below AHL level .826 save % and a -9.09 GSAE rating and was clearly the main reason why the Jets needed a last second miracle and an overtime goal in Game 7 to barely sneak into Round 2 versus the Dallas Stars.
The hard to figure out goaltender did have a bit of help though, as secondary scoring was an issue for Winnipeg against the Blues and the Jets usual 5 on 5 advantage was not there with St. Louis out-scoring our club 20 to 13 with the full complement of players on the ice.
Defensively, the True Northers were for the most part playing their game as they held the opposition to around 3 expected goals in 6 of the 7 contests. The skaters made it fairly difficult for the Blues to get dangerous scoring looks as they limited them to under 10 medium-high danger opportunities per game….yet St. Louis could also say the same thing about their defense.
In the end, while Winnipeg & St. Louis played a hard fought & intensely physical series, the Jets played well enough to earn a quicker victory if they had just received league average goaltending. When you deduct the 9 goals Bucky let in that an “average NHL” goalie would have stopped, that would have dropped the Blues goals per game from 3.86 to 2.57, which is fairly close to what Winnipeg averaged in the regular season (2.33).
Well that concludes Part 1 of the Post-Mortem….please let me know your thoughts about the article or your own insights about the Jets-Blues’ series in the Comment section below. Hope you enjoyed the read.
