The Winnipeg Jets went 8-5-0 in November and enter the December portion of the 2023-24 season third in the Central Division with a 12-8-2 record. The team faces a crucial December, where they’ll play another 13 games — seven at home and six away — and attempt to maintain a playoff position into the new year.
Here are three key to success for the club this month.
1: Recapture Scoring Touch
The Jets scored just three combined goals in their final three games of November, which were all losses. That one-goal-per-game average is a far cry from their four goals-per-game average they achieved in the 10 November contests that preceded the slide.
Related: Jets Top 3 Performers From November
Kyle Connor — who led the NHL with 14 goals on Nov. 18 — is stuck at that number as he’s failed to light the lamp in the past five games despite firing 18 shots on goal, many from high-danger areas. Mark Scheifele, similarly, hasn’t scored in four games.
Alex Iafallo, Connor and Scheifele’s line mate until recently, is pointless in seven straight after recording 13 points in his first 15 games. Mason Appleton, who is off to the best offensive start of his career, is goalless in five after scoring six in his first 17 games.
The Jets are a deeper team up front than in seasons past and it’s served them well overall as they still sit 11th in goals scored despite the recent power outage. They generated 25 high danger chances in the three losses, according to Natural Stat Trick, so it’s not like they haven’t been getting opportunities: they’ve just either failed to convert, been unlucky, or a combination of both (depending on how charitable you want to be.)
The Jets have scored 39 goals on 243 high-danger chances this season, a conversion rate of 16 per cent. Of their three goals in the past three games, only one was on a high-danger chance, making their conversion rate just four per cent.
That number indicates the lack of scoring is just one of those blips that happens in a long season rather than the new norm, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. This slide looks similar to the beginning of the prolonged one the team fell into last January.
2: Continue Special Teams Improvement
The Jets’ power play and penalty kill were both better in November than they was in October, but both facets of their game need further improvement.
Related: Jets’ 3 Early-Season Issues That Have Been Resolved
The power play, which was operating at just 11.09 per cent entering November, is now operating at 18.92 per cent. Meanwhile, the penalty kill that was operating at an abysmal 71.88 per cent entering November, has tightened up slightly and is now operating at 73.13 per cent.
The team cannot be happy with those numbers, though, as the PP percentage has them 20th in the league and the PK percentage has them even lower at 30th. The conventional wisdom is that if a team wants to be competitive, its percentages when combined should equal 100, and the Jets’ percentages only add up to 90.82.
The PP produced 10 goals in November and operated at a 25 per cent efficiency, but whiffs in key moments recently show this facet of the game remains a work in progress. Special teams can be the difference in a tight contest regardless of how strong a team is at five-on-five, and there is no better example of this than Nov. 28’s 2-0 loss to the Dallas Stars. The Jets had two separate five-on-three opportunities — 1:52 of five-on-three total between the second and the third period— but didn’t get complete enough seam passes or generate enough rebounds to score. In a defensive-minded game where there was little room at five-on-five, it cost them big time.
The fact the Jets are in third place in the Central Division entering December and won eight games in November is owing to their strong five-on-five play.
“Overall, our team game is very good. Our five-on-five game has been really good,” Jets head coach Rick Bowness — who missed 13 games a personal leave after his wife Judy suffered a seizure — said recently.
“Both specialty teams have to get better, but our five-on-five team game, for the most part, has been outstanding. It really has. That’s what’s going to carry us through the next 20 games but our special teams have to get better,” Bowness, who returned to the bench ahead of Nov. 24’s game against the Florida Panthers, continued. (From ‘Jets off to a flying start,’ Winnipeg Free Press, Nov. 27, 2023.)
Gabriel Vilardi, a dogged net front competitor, returned to the lineup on Nov. 30 after missing six weeks with an MCL sprain and was immediately slotted on the top power play. His return should bolster the unit’s fortunes further.
The PK allowed nine goals in November but has posted clean sheets in four of its past seven games. Cutting down the number of penalties has also helped: the Jets have been shorthanded just twice or less in each of its past seven games.
Unfortunately, a PK whiff, like the five-on-three whiffs, cost them at least a point in their most recent game. Against the Oilers, Leon Draisaitl broke a 1-1 deadlock with just 2:13 to go in the third period while Vilardi was in the box for a holding-the-stick infraction.
Jets defenceman Brendan Dillon recently spoke about the team’s PK with THW’s own Connor Hrabchak.
“There’s been some guys we’re working in, some new faces, and there have also been some brain-fart type of goals we are letting in,” Dillon said, adding losing two penalty-kill mainstay forwards from last season in Saku Maenalanen and Kevin Stenlund is a factor.
“We’ve had some bad bounces as well, but overall on the PK side, we’ve got to find a way to get the job done and block a shot or get a stick in the way,” Dillon continued.
Appleton, who is on the Jets’ second PK unit alongside captain Adam Lowry, also shed some light on the subject recently.
“It’s not one thing I can point out. It’s a couple of different little things that we haven’t been elite on, and that’s the difference when you’re playing these power plays,” Appleton said.
“But to your point of getting scored on late in the kill, it’s that one last clear, that one last rush entry denial, it’s just right there. You feel so good for a minute and 40 (seconds) and then you’re like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ You look at the clock with four seconds left and it goes in.” (From “Appleton the picture of consistency,’ Winnipeg Free Press, Nov. 20, 2023.)
3: Ramp Up Vilardi’s Involvement
Vilardi said earlier in the week he was close to being done for the season and feared he’d torn his MCL rather than sprained it in the third game of the season after being tripped by the Los Angeles Kings’ Blake Lizotte on Oct. 17.
Thankfully, while he missed a month and a half, he was able to recover and return to action against the Oilers, playing right wing on the fourth line with Morgan Barron and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby. Vilardi played 15 shifts for 13:02 of ice time and generated one shot, but as previously mentioned, took that careless penalty that led to Draisaitl’s game winner.
Vilardi, the main piece in the return in the trade sent Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Kings in June, was playing on the first line with Connor and Scheifele after a breakout 2022-23 where he recorded 21 goals and 43 points.
“We’re going to have to be a little patient with him, he’s missed a lot of time,” Bowness explained on Nov. 29.
“The game has ramped up a lot from when he was playing in early October, the speed of the game, everyone is at the top of their game now. So we’re going to have to be patient with him and work him in slowly,” he continued, adding “if we see he’s fitting right in, he’s picking up right where he left off then we’ll move up his minutes.”
The Jets need to ramp up Vilardi’s involvement as soon as possible. The organization had high hopes coming into the campaign that the 24-year-old budding star would take another step forward and be a consistent top-six threat and power play net-front mainstay.
Vilardi, for his part, should be motivated: speaking to the media on Nov. 29 for the first time since going down, he expressed frustration with his former teammate Lizotte’s reckless play along the boards that resulted in the injury.
“It’s a stupid play,” Vilardi said. “And it’s frustrating to think that guy sits in the box for two minutes and then I have to deal with what I’ve dealt with for the past month and a half.”
Vilardi said he does not believe Lizotte meant to hurt him, but also does not believe the trip was accidental.
“I’ve played with him a lot. He’s done a lot of little things like that,” Vilardi said. “It’s stuff that you guys say it was an awkward fall; it’s not an awkward fall. It’s someone pushing your feet out from the back, my knee gets caught under me and then he tackles me. It’s that simple… I think it’s a play that doesn’t need to happen. But what am I supposed to do now?”’
Vilardi said he doesn’t expect to “dominate” right away but is going to try his best. He rued the time missed and the opportunity to settle into a new market Lizotte took from him.
“It would have been nice to come in and get familiar and play and get comfortable, as opposed to not playing hockey,” he said. “These guys are 20 games in and I really haven’t done much, yet.”