Post-Game Talk: Hockeytown no more 4-2 Jets

[10Ducky10]

You inspired me to look it up--Myers has 3 points in his last 3 games, one of which was injury-shortened.
It's best not to show this much bias with numbers when the facts are a click away. Like him or not, Myers was playing much better of late.

I wasn't showing bias. I was correcting GNP...again.
Stats are a click away GNP, did you hear that?

 

[KingBogo]

I truly hope you are proven right on this KB . But when you are one of the acknowledged leaders on the team, this notion of "conserving oneself" has potential to play out very poorly. Scheif is not setting a particularly good example for the youngun`s.

Our young guns are still learning to play the NHL game that wouldn't even know how to conserve. On the other hand a good veteran team will have multiple players conserving for the playoffs. IMO there is a difference between dogging it and pacing yourself. An amazing amount of Stanley Cup champions finish the season in the 105 point range well off the president trophy pace. With star players that switch it into another gear when needed.

 

[KingBogo]

Re: Paul Maurice PTS% since 2014

I found the numbers I was looking for on hockeydb.com:

View attachment 174779

..and of course the Jets have only played 44 games this year, but plugging W/L (where losses include OTL) them into Excel was interesting.

View attachment 174781

Maurice's PCT% is .593 (rounding up) since 2014, with an average of 39.6 wins and 26.8 losses per annum. This years totals are included because while not a per annum figures, the data is normalized when calculating %.

You really should post this in the Maurice thread so it becomes part of the ongoing Maurice discussion rather than getting buried in a PGT.

 

[AlphaLackey]

Our young guns are still learning to play the NHL game that wouldn't even know how to conserve. On the other hand a good veteran team will have multiple players conserving for the playoffs. IMO there is a difference between dogging it and pacing yourself. An amazing amount of Stanley Cup champions finish the season in the 105 point range well off the president trophy pace. With star players that switch it into another gear when needed.

Parity is so strong, the advantage conferred by first overall is so weak relatively, that it's not surprising that the #1 seed may have a plurality but nowhere near a majority.

I mean, if there are six teams that are all reasonable enough that if they won you'd figure it was a reasonable outcome, no way that one of them is better than 50% versus the field combined, right?

 

[GNP]

Our young guns are still learning to play the NHL game that wouldn't even know how to conserve. On the other hand a good veteran team will have multiple players conserving for the playoffs. IMO there is a difference between dogging it and pacing yourself. An amazing amount of Stanley Cup champions finish the season in the 105 point range well off the president trophy pace. With star players that switch it into another gear when needed.

______________________________________________________

Great post here Bogo--and I totally agree with it. Look at the Penns this year, off to a very slow start, and starting to come on very strong right now. The guys like Malkin, Crosby and Kessel have been thru the season's grind, and know how taxing it can be. They employ the strategy of doing what they have to do, and slowly build up momentum during the year, and make the playoffs.

It's at this point when they haven't burn't themselves out, where they still have a lot to give for a Cup run. Don't count out the Penns this year --they are still a very dangerous team. Same thing with Ovi and the Caps--they will also be there.

I think guys like Wheeler, Scheifele and Little are doing exactly this, and having a good steady year, and building momentum up slowly for when it matters most.

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

Buff, Myers and Ehlers are out. Ehlers and Buff account for 1/3 of our successful zone entries in a game when healthy.

 

[kanadalainen]

You really should post this in the Maurice thread so it becomes part of the ongoing Maurice discussion rather than getting buried in a PGT.

Done!

 

[Ducky10]

• On the topic of Morrow-Niku, there's something to be said about being set up for failure. In ~6.5 of their 12 minutes on the ice they were playing with the 4th line of which they got barraged for pretty much 9CA against a constant rotation of Detroit's bottom 6 (and a bit of their second line too). When they played the remaining time split between Little and Lowry's line, the Corsi share was just below 50% (6CF, 8CA). There's a lot of glaring issues apparent when the 4th line and 3rd pairing were on the ice, but I believe most of that blame lies on the forwards themselves.
  
• For the record, here's how many games Niku has played in the last 4 weeks including today: 4. He's too young to be a press box defenceman and this is stunting his development. Jets need to figure out what they want from this kid and fast.

Really surprised this didn't get more attention, glad someone else noticed (@scelaton as well). Pairing Niku with Morrow, after sitting in the PB for so long, and then having them play half their shifts with the 4th line was ridiculous. Niku's skating and offensive instincts are so good, there has to be a better way to take advantage of his skills and pair him with a complimentary partner, than to do what Maurice did with him last night. Really disappointed in Maurice, and I defend him a lot.

 

[Get Bengt]

If you mean “all year” as in 2019 then I like your post. If you mean since the start of the season, he was out not too long ago for a long stretch and he had been horrible early on...

Good points. Amendments: add “relatively” in two places, to qualify the strength of both Kuli’s health (vs past years) and play (vs other Jets D).

But since 33 went down, 5’s overall contribution has, IMO, been second to none (except 44, of course) . Outside of the grassroots, I don’t think the pleasantness of that surprise has received much attention, yet.

 

[Guardian17]

Does anyone know if I can purchase one of these red Jets shirts?

 

[LowLefty]

Does anyone know if I can purchase one of these red Jets shirts?

Great pic - way to go Lit's !

 

[Ducky10]

Team was obviously gassed last night. I was at the game and it became very evident halfway through the 2nd and it wasn't too long after that when Detroit really started to notice and put the pedal down on the Jets. They had no legs to get to loose pucks and not much energy to chip and chase, which is what Detroit started forcing them to do by holding the blue line.

Jets gap play was horrendous, terrible spacing up the ice causing big gaps in transition. Detroit gained out blue line far too easily too often. Really miss Buff in that regard, Myers to a lesser extent but he also helps there (his 8 foot reach is handy in that regard).

4th line was a clown show. The apples are off the tree for me with Appleton, he's doing less and less every game. To be fair it's clear he's playing a safe game and finding his way. Lemieux was a whirling dervish of out of position hockey all night. This is where "energy" guys wear me out. It's fine to tear around the rink like a maniac, but have a little purpose to what your doing. Also made some terrible decisions with the puck, his skill wasn't exactly on display. Copp did what he could.

Poor Little.

Kudos to Kuli and Chiarot for logging those kind of minutes. Not the players you want regularly doing that and it was ugly but they answered the bell.

How anyone expected 60 minutes out of Scheifele after playing 26 minutes the night before is beyond me. Wheeler was also out of steam. I'm not as sympathetic towards Connor, he's young enough to have a bit more jump than he showed regardless.

Don't like Trouba on the first PP unit, he's absurdly static. Wheeler just skates up and down the half wall lately and either passes to Trouba, forces the puck through a seam or takes a low percentage shot. Get Morrissey back out there but more importantly get well soon Buff.

Good on Tanev, I've been a critic in certain regards, but the guy shows up night in night out. Lurch ran out of gas but otherwise played well. Glad Perreault is ok.

Way to go Croissant! Impressive again, we'll be seeing more of him I'm sure.

 

[Get Bengt]

Re: Paul Maurice PTS% since 2014

I found the numbers I was looking for on hockeydb.com:

View attachment 174779

..and of course the Jets have only played 44 games this year, but plugging W/L (where losses include OTL) them into Excel was interesting.

View attachment 174781

Maurice's PCT% is .593 (rounding up) since 2014, with an average of 39.6 wins and 26.8 losses per annum. This years totals are included because while not a per annum figures, the data is normalized when calculating %.

Thanks for doing that calc. Pet peeve of mine is comparing modern era PCT% (league avg ~0.6) to the classic era PCT% (league avg =0.5).

Is it easy for you to compute PoMo’s adjusted PCT for his entire career? (Sorry if you already did so, & I missed it.)

Another good way to normalize is to isolate OT/SO wins AND losses, call them all ties, and give them all 1 point. Would normalize %PCT almost exactly the same as your method - but would also normalize career “wins” and “losses”, making each more comparable across eras.

 

[redneckjabronie]

Team was obviously gassed last night. I was at the game and it became very evident halfway through the 2nd and it wasn't too long after that when Detroit really started to notice and put the pedal down on the Jets. They had no legs to get to loose pucks and not much energy to chip and chase, which is what Detroit started forcing them to do by holding the blue line.

Jets gap play was horrendous, terrible spacing up the ice causing big gaps in transition. Detroit gained out blue line far too easily too often. Really miss Buff in that regard, Myers to a lesser extent but he also helps there (his 8 foot reach is handy in that regard).

4th line was a clown show. The apples are off the tree for me with Appleton, he's doing less and less every game. To be fair it's clear he's playing a safe game and finding his way. Lemieux was a whirling dervish of out of position hockey all night. This is where "energy" guys wear me out. It's fine to tear around the rink like a maniac, but have a little purpose to what your doing. Also made some terrible decisions with the puck, his skill wasn't exactly on display. Copp did what he could.

Poor Little.

Kudos to Kuli and Chiarot for logging those kind of minutes. Not the players you want regularly doing that and it was ugly but they answered the bell.

How anyone expected 60 minutes out of Scheifele after playing 26 minutes the night before is beyond me. Wheeler was also out of steam. I'm not as sympathetic towards Connor, he's young enough to have a bit more jump than he showed regardless.

Don't like Trouba on the first PP unit, he's absurdly static. Wheeler just skates up and down the half wall lately and either passes to Trouba, forces the puck through a seam or takes a low percentage shot. Get Morrissey back out there but more importantly get well soon Buff.

Good on Tanev, I've been a critic in certain regards, but the guy shows up night in night out. Lurch ran out of gas but otherwise played well. Glad Perreault is ok.

Way to go Croissant! Impressive again, we'll be seeing more of him I'm sure.

You make a lot of good points. Despite the lucky record, Maurice is not fit to coach in the modern NHL. Burning out your top players...........good luck. They'll either start to suffer injuries or by the time the playoffs roll around, will have nothing left in the tank.

The 4th line? I know there are several [people] on this forum who constantly ripped Petan a new one for not scoring a point per game while playing 6 minutes. The two guys on the 4th offer nothing at this time yet continue to get rewarded with starts. More good coaching.

I concur with opinions on those other support guys. They may not be the most talented, but at least they show up and make an effort.

 

[Ducky10]

You make a lot of good points. Despite the lucky record, Maurice is not fit to coach in the modern NHL. Burning out your top players...........good luck. They'll either start to suffer injuries or by the time the playoffs roll around, will have nothing left in the tank.

The 4th line? I know there are several geniuses on this forum who constantly ripped Petan a new one for not scoring a point per game while playing 6 minutes. The two guys on the 4th offer nothing at this time yet continue to get rewarded with starts. More good coaching.

I concur with opinions on those other support guys. They may not be the most talented, but at least they show up and make an effort.

Well, to be clear, I certainly wasn't making the point that Maurice isn't fit to coach in today's NHL, or that the Jets record is lucky. Some decisions leave a lot to be desired, but that goes for most coaches.

 

[raideralex99]

Really surprised this didn't get more attention, glad someone else noticed (@scelaton as well). Pairing Niku with Morrow, after sitting in the PB for so long, and then having them play half their shifts with the 4th line was ridiculous. Niku's skating and offensive instincts are so good, there has to be a better way to take advantage of his skills and pair him with a complimentary partner, than to do what Maurice did with him last night. Really disappointed in Maurice, and I defend him a lot.

Honestly I think Maurice does this on purpose. He did it last month pairing 4th line with bottom two D and I thought he was an idiot for doing it. Now he did it again with Niku .... he's teaching and proving a point to the young players. Putting rookies/young players in the worst case scenario is a good thing in the long run. The faster they are able to handle it the quicker they will get into the lineup on a regular bases.

 

[Ducky10]

Honestly I think Maurice does this on purpose. He did it last month pairing 4th line with bottom two D and I thought he was an idiot for doing it. Now he did it again with Niku .... he's teaching and proving a point to the young players. Putting rookies/young players in the worst case scenario is a good thing in the long run. The faster they are able to handle it the quicker they will get into the lineup on a regular bases.

He's proving a point to young players by spiting his team? I disagree entirely that putting young players in the worst possible scenario is best for their development in the long run.

 

[Zhamnov5GoalGame]

I don't buy this theory that our top guys are conserving themselves.
If that was the plan they would not be near the top of minutes played / game for forwards in the league.
Wheeler and Scheifele have looked exhausted at many points during the season already and it's not even the ASB yet.

As for Brossoit I certainly don't want to get into it math wise...
But all you have to do is look at what our backup (starter) did last year in the same amount of time.

Mason 2 - 8 - 0
Brossoit 9 - 1 - 1

Without Brossoit there's a decent chance we aren't even in a playoff spot at this point.

Hellebuyck 19 - 13 - 1
Not exactly first place results

 

[ps241]

Eh, not quite. Statistically, each "+1 goal differential" is worth about one-third of a standings point on average, so each three more GF than GA is worth about one point in the standings.

Brossoit has faced 377 shots. If Brossoit was let's say league average (.909), he would be expected to have stopped 342.7 of them, and let in 34.3 goals.

In fact, he has only let in 23 goals, for a difference of 11.3 goals better than expected.

That's about 3-4 points in the standings. Not insignificant to be sure but also not as big as one might think. What with the emotional attachment to the occasional heroic performances (that Vancouver game comes to mind!) where there was no garbage time at all, it can be hard to remember that some saves or some goals have almost zero value in terms of standings points, and when you look at an "averaging" stat like SV%, well, it's an average.

Is the fact he is a back up figured into that? .909 as an expected save % feels to high for that group?

 

[Zhamnov5GoalGame]

I've crapped on him earlier in the year and then praised him recently...
But I thought Lemieux looked really disinterested last night.
Compared to his previous 5 or 6 games he looked like he was barely trying.
I know the whole 4th line was pretty meh so that factors into it along with getting "Morrowed" but I hope that isn't Brendan's average looking game from now on.

He did draw a penalty (on command).
I yelled at the tv after he lost the puck "C'mon man at least draw a penalty" and sure enough a couple of seconds later the Wings were called for holding.

I'm at the Ducks game on Sunday.
Hope I get to see some goals for the good guys.

 

[raideralex99]

As for Brossoit I certainly don't want to get into it math wise...
But all you have to do is look at what our backup (starter) did last year in the same amount of time.

Mason 2 - 8 - 0
Brossoit 9 - 1 - 1

Without Brossoit there's a decent chance we aren't even in a playoff spot at this point.

Hellebuyck 19 - 13 - 1
Not exactly first place results

Goaltending has not been the problem lately ... Hellebuyck he not the reason for those losses.
Brossoit is playing great and has been a pleasant surprise but it seems like when Brossoit plays the Jets get the bounces (2 goals last night) and when Hellebuyck plays the bounces go the other way.

 

[Zhamnov5GoalGame]

Goaltending has not been the problem lately ... Hellebuyck he not the reason for those losses.
Brossoit is playing great and has been a pleasant surprise but it seems like when Brossoit plays the Jets get the bounces (2 goals last night) and when Hellebuyck plays the bounces go the other way.

I don't disagree with lately but Helle cost a few wins earlier in the year.
It's not so much that Helle has been bad but rather that Brossoit has performed so much better than expected.

Again if we had last years back up results we'd be in a really bad spot trying to chase a Wild Card spot.

We certainly had a few horseshoes up our butts last night.
We also had some pretty unlucky goals against in the last couple of weeks so things even out.

 

[The Blue Baron]

Being at last night game, it had a great energy in the building. Almost felt like a year 2 home game return of the Jets.

 

[JetsFan815]

Maurice seemed pretty ticked off with some unnamed young players last night. Let's guess who...

Niku... made some okay plays, but also a couple of bad giveaways, one saved by Brossoit on a breakaway.

Lemieux... multiple times where he muffed zone exits or entries, resulting in too much D zone time.

Roslovic... I thought he made some nice offensive plays, but also made some bad exit attempts that got the Jets hemmed.

Laine.... See Roslovic above... Same problem.

Connor... This might surprise, but despite his 3 points, he really struggled in his own zone and on zone exits.

Notice the theme? Maurice puts a heavy emphasis on zone time, minimizing D and maximizing O. The Jets have a lot of forwards that really struggle with zone exits, and last night was a good example of how it really hurt them with extended shifts in their own zone after failed exits.

You have that about right. He pretty much "named" Niku and Connor in his presser with his answer to the question about Niku, and him making the comment about "Morrissey having to block 2 shots on that one shift due to a turnover" - I am pretty sure he is referring to Connor there, I remember thinking to myself during the game, if Morrissey is hurt after that shift then that's on Connor.

Laine has gotten a lot of heat due to his d-zone turnovers but Connor has been as bad if not worse than him in the d-zone. Him with Scheifele and Wheeler is not a great combo. I wish Maurice had stuck with Copp on the top line with them for a few more shifts. In Ehlers' absence a detail oriented player like Copp is exactly what they need.

 

[winnipegger]

Byfuglien is such a driver for the team. Ehlers too. I don't know why they don't put Perreault with Little and Laine. At this point I think a full fledged line blender might be what the doctor ordered. No Ehlers really throws the forward lines into disarray.