Okay, starting off with a lie is probably not the best way to go. So for the sake of complete honesty, the title incorrectly implies that half of the regular season remains when I must admit that the Winnipeg Jets in fact have only 42.683% left. With that burden off my chest, I can start writing the rest of the article in good spirits.
After spending the last few days scouring the internet for news about the Winnipeg Jets’ latest acquisition, I thought I would move onto a new topic. Not that I haven’t continued to learn some interesting things about Sean Monahan, such as the fact that he admitted to feeling nervous before his first Jets’ practice, he once roomed with Mark Scheifele (who appears to be set to return from his lower body injury) when they were representing Canada together, and Winnipeg’s coaching staff is planning to start him in the bumper position on the top powerplay unit (kudos to my neighbour Derek who correctly predicted this, despite my doubts). Here’s how the man-advantage groups were yesterday:
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing Vladislav Namestnikov replacing one of the defensemen on the second unit, but guess I should let them have a man-advantage attempt before I become too critical. Interesting that it appears that Rick Bowness is allowing Cole Perfetti to take face-offs for that unit, since the remaining players don’t have a lot of experience at the dot. Am hoping that Monahan will spark some more high dangers chances for the top unit and free up more space for Kyle Connor one-timers by being a threat to score from the bumper position. The fact that Monahan is especially strong on face-offs in the left circle works well with Scheifele’s right-side preference on the top unit, giving them better than a 50-50 chance on PP draws.
Before I dig into how the road ahead looks for Winnipeg, let’s briefly take note of where the Jets stand at this point. Currently the True North franchise sits in 6th place in the National Hockey League with 65 points, but they have 2 games in hand on the top five squads and just one win would vault them into 3rd place behind the Boston Bruins & Vancouver Canucks. According to my fellow math geeks over at MoneyPuck, the Jets have a 99.6% chance of making the playoffs in 2023-24, good for a tie for 5th best odds in the NHL. The Winnipeg Jets have done very well in some of the statistical categories, but are less impressive in others. Here’s where our team sits in some of the key stats at this point of the season:
So things are looking pretty great, right? There is that little problem of having the 9th worst PP percentage & 8th worst PK units in the NHL. Also, since two of the teams above Winnipeg in the standings are their divisional rivals, Colorado Avalanche & Dallas Stars, there is still work to do to if they want to lock up home ice advantage in the post-season. Let’s take a glance at the Western Conference standings to see where things sit before tonight’s post All-Star games (graphics courtesy of ESPN):
With an 11 point lead on the final wildcard spot and games in hand on the teams in the hunt, Winnipeg’s chances of making the playoffs is looking good. But where they’ll finish after 82 games depends on the schedule ahead, so let’s return to the goal of looking at what’s in store for the Jets. In the remaining 35 regular season games, I thought I would break the schedule down into three sections to assist with the review: Pre-Trade Deadline (14 games), Next 10 Games (shockingly 10 games), and The Final Stretch (11 games).
To open up the Monahan era of the 2023-23 season, we have my Pre-Trade Deadline section of games opening up on Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The longest stretch of games in my grouping, the first set includes:
Despite having to play three elite teams (Vancouver Canucks, Dallas Stars, & Carolina Hurricanes) and a slew of teams fighting for their post-season hopes, the Winnipeg Jets have plenty of games against the bottom-dwellers to make this an important stretch for the team. The large negative goal differential shows Winnipeg should be able to win more than they lose during this 14 game span, but those numbers are also inflated by a couple terrible teams (Chicago Blackhawks’ -72 & San Jose Sharks’ -92). The team will also face two back-to-back situations in this set of matches.
Moving onto the middle section of the remaining schedule, the Next 10 Games set of games doesn’t include many games at the Peg’s Canada Life Centre.
The shortest set of games in my review, this part of Winnipeg’s schedule includes:
If the Jets can remain road warriors (14-5-3 on the season) during this span, the franchise has a good chance of locking up a play-off spot early and turn their focus to the division title. The True Northers will have to play a couple of elite teams (VAN/NYR), but they will get quite a few chances to hurt the chances of opponents with playoff hopes (8 games versus the bottom 22 teams). The Next 10 will also provide a good chance to secure wins because Winnipeg will see a lot of teams with large negative goal differentials: NYI -23, WSH -31, CLM -36, & ANA -41. Once again, the Jets will have two back-to-back games in the Next 10 section.
The last section of games was called the Final Stretch earlier and from all appearances, the Winnipeg Jets are going to have to work hard for points in most of these matches. Based on opponents’ current records, the final 11 games will be quite the warm up for the playoffs and hopefully where Winnipeg’s forward depth pays dividends.
During the final push before the post-season, the Jets face the following tests:
Yikes, a +160 combined goal differential for Winnipeg’s opponents and 5 of 11 games against current top 10 franchises, this could be a make or break time for the Jets if they haven’t picked up a bunch of victories in the previous two sections. Can our team use a large advantage of home games during this span (7 of 11) to their advantage? To date, Canada Life Centre has witnessed 16 wins, 7 losses, and 2 loser points, so it might help a bit, but games against elite teams like Vegas, Edmonton, Dallas, Colorado, and Vancouver will likely tell how ready this year’s Winnipeg Jets are for the playoffs. Another bonus, no back-to-back games in the last stretch.
Way too early for me to predict how things will play out, so I will just sit back and wait to see if Chevy’s recent deal will pay immediate dividends tomorrow night against the Pens. What are your thoughts on the Jets chances going forward? With 40 out of 70 points fairly certain to lock up a top three spot in the Central Division and avoid the wildcard race, can our team lock that up and challenge for a division or even conference title?
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