The Winnipeg Jets are set to open their Stanley Cup Playoff run against the Colorado Avalanche in round one. Hart Trophy candidates Nathan MacKinnon and Connor Hellebuyck will undoubtedly have a massive impact on this series. All-world defenders Cale Makar and Josh Morrissey will eat up the majority of minutes, and the Jets’ defensive structure matching up against the Avalanche’s high-octane offence will supply the entertainment.
Here is the full series preview between the Avalanche and Jets, with both sides having clear keys to victory and a clear game plan in mind to slow down the opponent.
Star Power Dominates Headlines of Jets & Avalanche Matchup
On paper, this series between the second and third-best teams in the Central Division is full of star power on both sides. For the Avalanche, MacKinnon is the odds-on favourite to win the NHL’s MVP award, as he willed his team to victory on most nights, posting 51 goals and 140 points this season. Makar is arguably the best defenceman in the NHL, who posted a career-high 90 points this season. Mikko Rantanen is coming off of a 104-point season of his own, rounding out the “big three” for the Avs.
For Winnipeg, it starts in the crease, with the heavy favourite to win the Vezina Trophy, Hellebuyck. He posted a 37-19-4 record in 60 starts this season, to go along with a .921 save percentage (SV%) and 2.39 goals against average (GAA). He also led the league by a wide margin in Money Puck’s tracking of goals saved above expected (GSAx), finishing the season with 33.1, with Thatcher Demko coming in second place with 22.0.
The season series was decidedly in Winnipeg’s favour, as they went 3-0 against the Avalanche, outscoring them 17-4. The Jets’ most recent win over the Avs was a 7-0 domination inside Ball Arena in, which all but decided home-ice advantage in this series. Immediately after the game, Bowness was quick to point out how that is not the same Avalanche they will see in this series
Related: Revisiting Jets/Avalanche Regular-Season Series Ahead of 2024 Playoff Matchup
“That’s not their ‘A’ game, we know we’re going to see a lot better than that,” Bowness said. “I know their goalies had a tough night.”
The Jets know exactly what they are up against in this series, as head coach Rick Bowness, Morrissey, and Adam Lowry all mentioned Colorado’s elite players by name in their first playoff availability.
“Well, they’ve got probably one of, if not the best player in the world right now,” Jets’ captain Lowry said. “It starts with MacKinnon, and you’ve got a world-class defenceman in Makar, and Rantanen. They’ve got some really high-end pieces, they’ve got a great back-end, they’re mobile they move the puck well, their power play is lethal, and they can score goals.”
While the Jets have the ability to counter with stars of their own in Morrissey and Hellebuyck, their bread and butter this season has been their depth up front and their five-on-five defensive structure.
Their leading point-getter this season was Mark Scheifele with 72, and yet, they finished with a 52-24-6 record and 110 points, good for fourth-best in the entire NHL and second-best in the Western Conference. They aren’t going to win on star power, but in order to win, they’ll need to leverage their depth against the Avalanche’s star power over a seven-game series between two heavyweights.
Keys to Victory for Both Jets and Avalanche in Round 1 Series
The star power of the Avalanche core has been there and done that in regards to winning a Stanley Cup, when they defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games back in the 2021-22 season. For the Jets, Tyler Toffoli and Laurent Brossoit have won the cup in the past, but the advantage of knowing what it takes to win and the experience is heavily in the Avalanche’s favour.
“Their strength is their elite players. Mackinnon, Makar, Rantanen, they’ve got some great players over there. And they’ve won a championship,” Bowness said on Friday. “They’ve been there. They have a little bit of an advantage with that, they’ve won a cup and they know what it takes to get there.”
Take this clip below as an example of what MacKinnon can do in a playoff setting:
High-end talent shining through, playoff experience playing a factor, and winning the special teams battle are the keys to victory in this series for the Avalanche. Their power play ranked fifth-best in the NHL (24.5%), and when facing the Jets’ 21st-ranked penalty kill (77.1%), that advantage could shift the series in a big way.
Now, to the keys to victory for Winnipeg. First, they have to win in net, and by a wide margin. Calling it simply a “goaltending advantage” would be underselling the advantage the Jets truly have in the crease. Not only is Hellebuyck the best goaltender in the league, but Alex Georgiev has struggled mightily for the Avalanche this season. He leads the league in NHL in wins (38), but has a SV% of .897% and a GAA of 3.00.
The next key is depth. Because the Jets will almost certainly be matching up Lowry’s line against MacKinnon, the Jets’ second line of Nikolaj Ehlers, Sean Monahan, and Toffoli could be an X-factor to success. They have outscored their opponents 11-4 at five-on-five this season, and against the Avalanche’s depth up front, they could put up some eye-popping numbers. The Jets will need to win the non-MacKinnon minutes substantially if they want to win this series, and on paper, that’s a bet that Winnipeg is likely willing to take.
The Jets sticking to their pressure style of forecheck and their suffocating defensive structure is another key to victory, and ti’s something that was brought up by Bowness when previewing this series.
“The other thing for me, is not to give them too much respect,” Bowness added during Friday’s availability. “Let’s go out there and play our game, stay aggressive and stay with our pressure game, and not wait for things to happen.”
Jets Need to Take Full Advantage of Early Games at Home
The Jets securing home-ice advantage was crucial for a multitude of reasons, but none bigger than being able to control the matchups against MacKinnon, Makar & Co. The Jets’ third line of Nino Niederreiter, Lowry, and Mason Appleton is going to see plenty of ice time against Colorado’s best, and that is a matchup that Bowness will deploy consistently.
“Matchups are going to be very, very important, clearly,” Bowness said in response to having home-ice advantage. In another answer, he noted that the third line has a crucial role to execute: “Yeah, Adam’s line is going to play a huge role, and he scored a couple of goals in Colorado. But it’s usually the guys like that, the grinders, the workers, they’re going to go get the greasy goals, because the pretty goals aren’t going to be there.”
The Avalanche’s home record of 30-9-1 was the best in the NHL this season, and their road record of 19-16-6 was middle of the pack. The Jets’ dominance at home this year, along with the ability to control the matchups, only heightens the importance of starting the series out the right way in front of the ‘Winnipeg Whiteout’ with a win in Game 1 on Sunday, April 21 at 6:00 PM CT.
Lowry cautioned against the idea of total line-matching, as even with the Jets controlling the matchups, it’s simple math to look at MacKinnon’s ice time and Lowry’s ice time, and to know that they won’t be 100% equal. He expressed confidence in his group when facing this tall task:
“The thing with players like MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar, is they play so many minutes that you can’t rely on just one line,” Lowry said after practice Friday. “That’s what has kind of been so good about our team this year, we have been able to play different lines against the high-end players and have some success. With a guy that plays as many minutes as he does, you’re going to need to have awareness up and down the lineup that when you’re on the ice against him, kind of how to mitigate his chances.”
Series Prediction: Winnipeg Jets Win in 6 Games
My Prediction: The Winnipeg Jets will win this series in Game Six, on Thursday, May 2, inside Ball Arena in Denver. Here is why I lean toward the Jets in this matchup:
The goaltending advantage cannot go understated, as it’s arguably the widest advantage one team has over another in any of the first-round series. I believe the Jets matchup well with the Avalanche, stylistically, as their shutdown line of Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton can mitigate the explosiveness of MacKinnon, and I believe the depth behind them (I’m looking at you, Ehlers-Monahan-Toffoli) will be able to win their minutes notably.
While the Jets’ special teams are a concern, the power play is coming in red-hot and might be able to lessen that advantage for the Avalanche in this series. Ever since Gabriel Vilardi returned to the lineup on March 30, who is the key cog in the Jets’ first power play unit, their power play is clicking along at a respectable 25 percent. Between Feb 2 and Feb 29, when both Monahan and Vilardi were playing on the top unit, the Jets’ power play unit was over 30 percent. I don’t think the season-long mark on the man advantage is indicative of how dangerous the Jets can truly be with the power play, and that advantage I think isn’t as wide as many people think.
Between the eight-game winning streak heading into the playoffs, the power play clicking at the right time, home-ice advantage, and the Jets’ biggest strength being Avalanche’s biggest weakness, I see the Jets as having the advantage in this series. Having said that, would anyone be shocked if MacKinnon carried his team to victory in this series? Didn’t think so. One thing is for certain, this series will be must-see TV, and it all starts on Sunday, April 21 in Winnipeg, in front of the Winnipeg whiteout.