Post-Game Talk: 5 minutes of work doesn't equal a win, Jets lose in OT 2-1

[Bladerunner62]

9 games in 16 days, you're going to be gassed. Both games against Vegas were the 3rd game in 4 nights. time to even out the TOI. give the 4th line more minutes, they deserve it.

 

[ERYX]

This thread should bring warm even the most charcoal-like of hearts

"When did you know it was over for this group?" on the TO forum.

 

[AlphaLackey]

I am put in mind of Napoleon Bonaparte's famous rerort when he was criticised for winning battles simply because of luck: “I'd rather have lucky generals than good ones.”

In other words, I'll take the points, and I'll take the luck. Not going to let the fact we relied on luck ruin my enjoyment. Doesn't mean I don't want the Jets' play to improve. But I take things game by game. Can't control anything anyway, and enjoy watching men play a kid's game of chasing a piece of rubber around some ice for preposterous amounts of money.

Of course, one should also add that Napoleon was almost certainly the most objectively skilled general in military history, so the illusion of "good army finds a way to win" would happen to him more often. And no, I would have felt no shame with the two points had we finished the miracle. They spend just as sweet either way. But that's the thing about luck. You can't "have" it in the same sense you can have skill. One can't "have luck" or "be lucky"; one can only "have had luck" or "have been lucky". It exists solely as a rear view measurement. In that case, you can't have a lucky general or a lucky team.

 

[DRW204]

i thought vegas was supposed to suck this year. i found them playing closer to the year 1 team against us the past two games. quick on pucks and turn TOs into chances for pretty fast. their goaltending has been surprisingly v good so far this year. the all-world duo of Adin Hill & Logan Thompson lol. they're near the bottom of the league in rates of shots and chances allowed, so they're making the job easy for them.

it was 2 games.... but feel like they hardly actually played defense vs us in their own zone. like their was hardly a point where we had sustained Offensive-Zone time, their best D was generating, and retrieving TOs.

 

[surixon]

i thought vegas was supposed to suck this year. i found them playing closer to the year 1 team against us the past two games. quick on pucks and turn TOs into chances for pretty fast. their goaltending has been surprisingly v good so far this year. the all-world duo of Adin Hill & Logan Thompson lol. they're near the bottom of the league in rates of shots and chances allowed, so they're making the job easy for them.

it was 2 games.... but feel like they hardly actually played defense vs us in their own zone. like their was hardly a point where we had sustained Offensive-Zone time, their best D was generating, and retrieving TOs.

Cassidy for my money is a top 3 coach in this league and has them all bought in playing excellent all around hockey.

 

[CorgisPer60]

i thought vegas was supposed to suck this year. i found them playing closer to the year 1 team against us the past two games. quick on pucks and turn TOs into chances for pretty fast. their goaltending has been surprisingly v good so far this year. the all-world duo of Adin Hill & Logan Thompson lol. they're near the bottom of the league in rates of shots and chances allowed, so they're making the job easy for them.

it was 2 games.... but feel like they hardly actually played defense vs us in their own zone. like their was hardly a point where we had sustained Offensive-Zone time, their best D was generating, and retrieving TOs.

Vegas wasn't supposed to suck this year. Shit, they barely missed the playoffs last year while missing Stone, Eichel, and their starting goalies for significant portions of the year. A full healthy year for those guys and they're comfortably in the top of the conference.

 

[KingBogo]

There's a lot of people on the ledge when I looked out this morning

Christ, we're 5-3-1 record and 2nd in the Central .............

Honestly I don't know how some around year make it through a hockey season. If every game represents an opportunity for despair, the unpredictability and luck in an NHL game must be agonizing. Its sports it is supposed to be entertainment and a diversion from real life not the source of emotional turmoil.

 

[surixon]

Vegas wasn't supposed to suck this year. Shit, they barely missed the playoffs last year while missing Stone, Eichel, and their starting goalies for significant portions of the year. A full healthy year for those guys and they're comfortably in the top of the conference.

Yeah they now have a top 10C to add to a top 3 all around winger, two number 1 dmen and a couple of all around 2C's. Even if they aren't as deep upfront they still have a good amount of talent.

 

[BoneDocUK]

Good point, as you mentioned we have turned over a good chunk of the roster.

Of the old guard this is what I have seen:

-Scheifele is trying in his end and is often down low supporting the dmen. I think we can hopefully expect improvements in all around play as he gets used to it.

-Wheeler I think has just aged out as a good player. He still is getting his points but looks slower and isn't as strong on pucks as he was in past years. His hands and puck skills also look to have taken a hit. He ideally would be in a third line role at this point in his career or with two guys that can really push the play.

-Conner is still having issues transitioning the puck out of his end. This has been an issue for a while with him. But he's not alone there this year as our breakouts have been crap for the most part. Hopefully as a team we get this ironed out and we see improvements from Conner.

Pionk just needs to be taken off the top pairing. He's dragging JoMo down. The two also don't click as they both want to jump in aggressively.

In all honesty I think we need one more top 6 player udeally with some grit and tenacity to push Wheeler out on the right. We also need to probably improve on one of Schmidt/Pionk. I think you can have one of the two but having both creates a liability on the back end.

Good post.

Agree absolutely re Wheeler and Pionk -- main issue with moving Wheeler is that the 3rd line is working well, but otherwise moving him down for Barron or even Gagner might help.

Pionk is mostly picking up his weird D game from where he left off. Forget "balance" and shunt him down to the 3rd pairing where he can do less damage.

KFC is always better when he's pushing the puck from the NZ. But you're right; there's not a whole lot of useful support there from the back end, and you're not getting that from Apples or 55 alone. Maybe another reason for shifting KFC back with PLD and Perfetti for a spell?

 

[Joe Hallenback]

That game was some thing else. Guys went out to the Rio Seafood buffet before the game left the 4th line watching the bags at the hotel and then just decided to mail it in. Helly has other plans and stands on his head. Team realizes it might have a chance at winning and OVERPLAYS the players who sucked for most of the game. I wish Bones was here maybe he would have had the balls to just sit them on the bench. If we were going to lose lets loose with Gus and Saku and Alphagetti on the ice

 

[R Zardo]

Sheif and Connor had 3 ot shifts. don't like this I believe fresh legs is the most important thing in ot.

PLD and Wheels had 1 shift and should've been out there for the final faceoff in Vegas' zone.

you need a third group in ot. Lowery and Appleton, not sure. Perfetti's skating a liability maybe? Who does Ehlers pair up with?

Connor struggles entering the zone on the pp.

Schmidt is getting some scoring chances on the right dot both on the pp and 5on5. He needs to start hitting the net.

4th line is showing how important it is to have chemistry. They read off each other and are always in the right place to cover the ozone with a forechecking swarm.

 

[DRW204]

Vegas wasn't supposed to suck this year. Shit, they barely missed the playoffs last year while missing Stone, Eichel, and their starting goalies for significant portions of the year. A full healthy year for those guys and they're comfortably in the top of the conference.

i wasn't predicting their goaltending to play at this level with thompson and hill. they have the league best goaltending with a 0.9414 sv%. just for reference, we're 7th with 0.9169 (nice). getting guys back healthy is important ofc, but seriously did you have their duo performing at this high a level? they do make it easier for them though. perhaps suck was to harsh, but thought goaltending would be their downfall (i don't think this was an unpopular take during the off-season).

 

[robertocarlos]

I've played a ton of sports. I remember one dude on my team who loved going for the low % "big play". I used to hate when it worked because I knew he'd romanticize that one success and it would lead to plenty of bad decisions in the future.

Some people are just big picture thinkers. I was always a player who tried to detach myself from results and focus more on process, because results are always a bit capricious and process is far more important. Good process is going to lead to results naturally. Process is the part that you can control.

Yeah obviously the result is a good thing, but I'd much rather play well and lose than play badly and win (unless it's a playoff game or something) because that means better results in the long run.

Agree that top pairing is struggling a lot.

It's a process.

 

[LowLefty]

I would for once like to hear what a coach means by playing a simpler game. I don't feel like the top 6 tried to do anything that fancy tonight. They did what the coach wanted and chipped it out and chipped it in and went in on the forecheck. If the game plan is to chip and chase and disrupt all year then yeah you are better off moving our skilled guys out because that type of game isn't in their DNA.

I don't mind wanting everyone to work but smart coaching realizes that you can't just put a cookie cutter approach on an entire team.

When they say "simple", they are likely referring to the basics -
Work hard, play aggressive, with speed, with and without the puck
Watch the bottom 6 play and you'll see what simple means

You need to start there and then layer in the skill plays and tactics - but it starts with the basics.
You can't drive your skilled players on skill alone - they also need to play hard and be aggressive at both ends. Those are the simple basics that will help us with puck possession and reduce the time we spend defending.
There is nothing that will burn through a teams energy faster than chasing the game all night - which leaves nothing for offense. To me, that is pretty obvious when you look at our top 6 coming through the neutral zone - no speed, short chippy passes, nothing in the tank to drive through the zone with speed.

I listened to the Leafs coach post game comments - one point he made was how you burn through energy when you spend too much time defending and leaving nothing for offense. And the Leafs look like us right now - poor defenders with struggling offense.

 

[CorgisPer60]

i wasn't predicting their goaltending to play at this level with thompson and hill. they have the league best goaltending with a 0.9414 sv%. just for reference, we're 7th with 0.9169 (nice). getting guys back healthy is important ofc, but seriously did you have their duo performing at this high a level? they do make it easier for them though. perhaps suck was to harsh, but thought goaltending would be their downfall (i don't think this was an unpopular take during the off-season).

Their goaltending is good when it needs to be, but when you as a team give up two goals against per game, you don't need your goaltending to be otherworldly.

 

[sipowicz]

Wish we could trade Wheeler and get someone else who is worth $8m a season or if the NHL had a salary restructure so we could restructure Wheelers contract to get some of that money back to use.

I'm not the biggest Wheeler fan but guy is the leading scoring forward on the Jets currently, has 2 goals one more than Connor who is supposed to be our goal scorer!

 

[surixon]

When they say "simple", they are likely referring to the basics -
Work hard, play aggressive, with speed, with and without the puck
Watch the bottom 6 play and you'll see what simple means

You need to start there and then layer in the skill plays and tactics - but it starts with the basics.
You can't drive your skilled players on skill alone - they also need to play hard and be aggressive at both ends. Those are the simple basics that will help us with puck possession and reduce the time we spend defending.
There is nothing that will burn through a teams energy faster than chasing the game all night - which leaves nothing for offense. To me, that is pretty obvious when you look at our top 6 coming through the neutral zone - no speed, short chippy passes, nothing in the tank to drive through the zone with speed.

I listened to the Leafs coach post game comments - one point he made was how you burn through energy when you spend too much time defending and leaving nothing for offense. And the Leafs look like us right now - poor defenders with struggling offense.

I mean that was exactly what the top 6 did all game hence my comment. Our top 6 players juat aren't as suited to a trench warfare based game as the bottom 6 players are.

The point shouldn't be to force our skill guys into board battles on breakouts for pucks like we do as they get eaten alive there. Ditto forcing dumps all the time and getting them to win nonstop board battles to win the pucks. There is playing hard and there is applying that effort smartly and imo we need some modifications to some schemes to change how we get certain players on this team to work hard.

 

[LowLefty]

I mean that was exactly what the top 6 did all game hence my comment. Our top 6 players juat aren't as suited to a trench warfare based game as the bottom 6 players are.

The point shouldn't be to force our skill guys into board battles on breakouts for pucks like we do as they get eaten alive there. Ditto forcing dumps all the time and getting them to win nonstop board battles to win the pucks. There is playing hard and there is applying that effort smartly and imo we need some modifications to some schemes to change how we get certain players on this team to work hard.

Who said anything about trench warfare -
I'm referring to a game where the top 6 play more than just offense - and we saw that in the Blues game.
I'm not referring to board battles - I'm talking about giving your opponent less time to make plays - a faster game without the puck - no time or space. That's what the good teams, including Vegas, are doing to us on the way into their zone and in their zone. Our offense, OTOH, doesn't apply much of that kind of pressure when in their end - and good offensive teams eat us alive.

This isn't complicated - and that is what the coaches are referring to when they say "simple" - it isn't about not playing with strong systems and using your talent - it's about laying a foundation of fast 2 way hockey before you can expect systems to work.
It's also a hard sell to get offense minded players to work hard without the puck - ask Maurice, or Lowry and now Arniel. Hopefully Bowness gets them back on track with that message and we see more consistency.

We knew this was going to take time (more so for the top 6 than the bottom) - and not having Bowness behind the bench isn't helping - I'm hoping he can get these guys on the same page when he returns.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I didn't like how this team played on this trio but we emerge with 5 of 6 points and have escaped the hellish start of our schedule.

Helle stole that point.

I'm going to call out coaching tonight, they didn't adapt to the opposition and played right into their hands whacking it up the wall into a scrum the first half of the game. That plays right into their hands as they are a much bigger and more physical team then us. We tried to turn it into trench game and we are going to get killed against them everyday trying to play that way. Once we started skating a d making plays we had a bit more luck. The OT deployment wasn't great and we overplayed Mark and Conner the back half of the OT and they had no gas in the end in Jack's goal.

Not many positives tonight.

Fourth line was good.
I like that Cole is getting inside and shooting a lot . Him doing that will start to open up other passing lanes as they gravitate towards taking his shot away.

I thought Snerg had a good game too.

 

[surixon]

Who said anything about trench warfare -
I'm referring to a game where the top 6 play more than just offense - and we saw that in the Blues game.
I'm not referring to board battles - I'm talking about giving your opponent less time to make plays - a faster game without the puck - no time or space. That's what the good teams, including Vegas, are doing to us on the way into their zone and in their zone. Our offense, OTOH, doesn't apply much of that kind of pressure when in their end - and good offensive teams eat us alive.

This isn't complicated - and that is what the coaches are referring to when they say "simple" - it isn't about not playing with strong systems and using your talent - it's about laying a foundation of fast 2 way hockey before you can expect systems to work.
It's also a hard sell to get offense minded players to work hard without the puck - ask Maurice, or Lowry and now Arniel. Hopefully Bowness gets them back on track with that message and we see more consistency.

We knew this was going to take time (more so for the top 6 than the bottom) - and not having Bowness behind the bench isn't helping - I'm hoping he can get these guys on the same page when he returns.

I'm not arguing against any of that. I like the pressure schemes we apply. I also haven't seen a lack of work ethic from our top 6 in buying in.

What we have seen so far is that when we get the puck out cleanly the top 6 is much more able to play that way successfully. When they get bogged down into constant defensive battles and when the puck keeps getting turned over exiting our zone that is when they get into trouble and get hemmed in.

Last night the defense constantly played the puck up the boards into contested areas instead of taking a look and putting the puck on an open stick and getting out cleanly. This bogged the top 6 down and prevented them gaining speed leaving the zone. This wasn't just a defenseman issue as our forwards now seem to be taught to chip it out and hope one of our other forwards is able to skate onto it. All to often though that results in a turnover and it's right back in.

So to me it isn't a question of effort, it's a question of fixing the breakouts and that will lead to improvements in all the other areas.

 

[BrokerD]

OMG Helly was almost a miracle worker last night. The inability to move the puck out of our end is downright scary. Questionable coaching decisions in OT is what lost the other point (Jets didn’t even deserve to be in OT). Hopefully Bones gets back soon and figures something out

 

[Potrzebie]

I've really resisted using ignore for a long time but the toxic negativity is really affecting my enjoyment.

I know the feeling. I actually cleared my ignore list at the beginning of training camp and figured hey, fresh start new coach and all that.

Rebuilt it a couple of games into preseason

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Pionk is not very smart - hockey wise
He floats one in on goal - in OT - which is simply a turnover - because he is tired.
And then tries a no look back pass - in OT - another turnover.

I watched all of this one - and it was painful.
As a fan, you need to stick with it I guess
But man, do we have major issues with our game - blue line and top 6.

Loved our bottom 6 - they are showing the way and you can only hope that KC, Scheif, Wheels, can learn to put that kind of effort in when not on offense. If they do, we can be competitive - if they don't, it will be a long season for Helle.

Stole a point - didn't deserve it and I kind of wish we didn't get it - a blow out might have been what it takes to wake up a few of these guys.

Interesting. All off-season it was 'we need to fix the bottom 6'. Now, that and Helle are the only things that don't need fixing. Hmmmm

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

"We're not winning right!"

I'll take being outplayed and winning over dominating and losing

Well ............ sure, OK. But it isn't sustainable. If they keep playing like this, it won't last.

Lets hope this has been them at their worst and they came away with 5 pts out of 6.

 

[LowLefty]

Interesting. All off-season it was 'we need to fix the bottom 6'. Now, that and Helle are the only things that don't need fixing. Hmmmm

I was not one of the "we need to fix the bottom 6" crowd -
But regardless, what do you think?