A very good game from the whole Jets team! Well Buff had to take again two bad penalties, but I thought that even he was relatively good tonight otherwise. Really loved the effort with still good discipline that the Jets had.
I thought that Wheeler’s and Lowry’s lines were the best lines. Unbelievable Corsi for Wheeler’s line (I think Laine had even around 90, and was clearly the best in the team), and Lowry’s line had also an amazing Corsi when thinking that they played most of the game against Stamkos’s line. These two lines were really quite a key for keeping the Bolts pretty low on scoring chances.
Little’s line started very shaky in the first period, but thank God at the halfway of the game they started playing clearly better at both ends. They were very important in scoring after all the 3-1 goal.
Defence and Hutchinson were also pretty darn good, although Hutchinson did look a bit shaky occasionally. But who cares how you really look on the ice, when you get the job well done?
I have to still say that Laine just seems criminally underrated amongst many Jets fans. I saw some remarking several times in the GDT how he was constantly horrible with zone exits, but nothing about how many great zone exits he after all made. Sure I counted that he made two slight mistakes with his zone exits, but those didn’t really lead into much of danger, and anyway they were that kind of very hard pressure situations that most of the players get into trouble with. But in general he made several very nice and smart zone exits and all in all his defensive play was excellent tonight. Whom claims otherwise must seriously dislike Laine and is completely biased against him.
As a 19 year old team’s clearly youngest player he achieved 1 goal, 6 shots , +1 (for those who still value +/-) and team best Corsi of about 90 (for those who value Corsi), in a game against the top team in the whole league. I mean, sure the Jets were absolutely great as a team tonight, but Laine was also one of the absolutely greatest players on the ice. Maybe would be good to recognise his play too. What I see here is only praise for other players, but when Laine plays by all means a great game (OK, not the flashiest but a darn efficient one at both ends), the only things I see mentioned here is how horrible he is with his zone exits (absolutely not true tonight, only a blind or completely biased person can claim that).
But thanks for the whole Jets team! It was an excellent team effort and excellent hockey, especially defensively! Starting to really love this team!
