WPGChief
Registered User
It's pretty clear that the Jets are not interested in 27-55-X. Whether that's because Ehlers tries too hard with more minutes, or Scheifele doesn't try hard enough, or they don't have the chemistry we think they do (even though 27-55 together are the 3rd best on the team this year in terms of forward combos for both the C±/60 and xGF/60 they generate on the ice together (of which 27-81 and 27-13 are in first and second for either of those, lol)), or Bowness likes to spread out his offensive talent, or Scheifele wants to play with Connor instead of Ehlers, etc. - whatever it is, it's not happening unless 81 gets injured again.If we roll four lines like last night then Im not as worried about CSV - maybe they find their game maybe not... but the ship on Ehlers-Scheif has sailed so time to let go
Last night was a nice win - next test is not coming out flat in the first on Saturday
It's unfortunate, considering that if they don't find their game or get it going or whatever, that the likely expectation is that they'll be outscored while munching up most of the available minutes at 5v5 (~30%) - and given that the Lowry line will eat up another ~25% of that time to matchup against the opponent's best to minimize the bleed, that's a lot of pressure to put on the Jets special teams (which have been struggling all year!) and the 2nd and 4th lines to make up for the expected deficit. I suppose the added advantage is Hellebuyck keeping things even closer so perhaps they only need to make up maybe just 1 goal instead of 2-3 - but generally speaking, it's better to rely on scoring more than your opponent (i.e. winning games 5-3) than preventing them from scoring more than you (i.e. winning games 2-1).
Nevertheless, there simply is no more runway to either try out something different or get the buy-in necessary - that should have happened months ago. Teams are gearing up for "playoff mode" and clearly the folks in the locker room with the most influence (be that coaching staff or the players that have the most minutes) believe that this is the way forward - so, onward they go.