The Winnipeg Jets have gone streaking, picking up wins in three consecutive games.
After a sleepy 1-3-0 start to the season, the Jets have now lost just once in regulation over their past nine. They really rounded into form with their 6-3 victory over the Nashville Predators Thursday night that followed a 5-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Nov. 7 and a 5-3 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Nov. 4.
There has been a whole lot to take away — and a whole lot to like — about the Jets’ past 180 minutes of hockey that indicate they may be a serious threat in the Western Conference. Here are three takeaways.
1: The First Line is on Fire
They’d been lukewarm at times since Gabriel Vilardi went down with injury in the third game of the season, but now the first line is on fire.
The trio of Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, and Alex Iafallo must have seen what the third line of of Nino Niederreiter, Adam Lowry, and Mason Appleton did against the Coyotes — when that line combined for three goals and five assists — and decided it was their turn to shine.
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The Connor/Scheifele/Iafallo line was held off the scoresheet at Mullett Arena while the third line carried the offensive mail, but put on a scoring and puck-possession clinic against the Blues and Predators, combining for six goals and 14 assists. They passed well, generated chances off the rush and in transition, and regularly hemmed opponents in.
Connor scored twice against the Blues and scored a hat trick against the Predators to push his goal totals to 11 through 13 games (he had just two in his first 13 games last season.) Iafallo didn’t score, but had six assists, including a career-high four against the Blues. Scheifele scored once and against the Blues while adding two assists and had a four-assist night of his own against the Predators.
“I think we’re using our feet to create turnovers, and we’re playing well in our system, too,” Connor said after scoring the fifth hat trick of his career Thursday. “That’s something we can always fall back on and know that if we do that well we’re going to have turnovers and have the puck more, which is obviously what we want to do to – have possession and create as much offence as we can.”
Underlying stats prove their production is no fluke, either: their expected goals for percentage was 77.54 against the Blues and an eye-popping 85.62 against the Predators, according to MoneyPuck.com. (For the uninitiated, expected goals for is a stat that takes shot location, shot type, and other factors into account and gives a shot a value based on historical success rates for that shot becoming a goal. Anything above 50 per cent means a line is producing more high-quality chances than they’re giving up.)
Their production is obviously notable, but so is their back checking and overall effort, associate coach Scott Arniel said postgame Thursday.
“The biggest thing is when they come to the bench, it’s their teammates talking about the back check, they’re not talking about the goal,” Arniel said. “That’s the big part of it and that’s when you know you’ve got buy in and everyone is kind of excited about how those goals are coming… when they come back all the guys are yelling ‘great back check, great back check, great back check,’ and that what you love to hear.”
2: The Special Teams Are Improving
The Jets’ special teams entered the month not looking special at all, but are starting to course correct.
The power play scored in each of the three wins, and scored multiple man-advantage markers against the Blues for just the second time this season. The better results were much-needed as prior to the streak, that aspect of their game was more often sapping their momentum than helping to gain it.
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The power play was just four-for-34 entering November (a 11.09 efficiency) and was in the midst of a zero-for-13 slump. Both units were failing to retain possession in the offensive zone or generate dangerous chances, but with a greater focus on getting shots to the net — rather than overpassing to try to set up the “perfect play” — and getting more traffic net-front, they’ve managed to strike five times in four games this month to improve their efficiency to 18.37 per cent.
“Recently… we had a big meeting when things weren’t going our way,” Connor said. “Kind of what came out of it was more of a net front presence, and obviously, our entries we needed to sharpen up a bit – which I thought we have the last couple of games. Having a net-front, it makes every shot on the power play dangerous, to get someone in front of (the goalie’s) eyes. After that, it’s just having an attack mindset, getting pucks to the net.”
“When you come out of training camp… you’re looking for fancy, you’re looking highlight, you’re looking for tic-tac-toe goals,” Arniel said postgame Thursday. “At the end of the day… the thing that works the most is when you do have somebody as the net (front) presence.”
Iafallo is that presence on the first unit and Niederreiter is that presence on the second, Arniel explained, adding their work has opened up more opportunities for Josh Morrissey and Neal Pionk to fire shots from the point that generate rebounds and scrambles.
“We were maybe on the goal line or off to the side and there was nobody there to sort of create that second chance or chaos that comes from it. That net presence has been a big part of it,” he continued, also mentioning winning more faceoffs as a positive factor.
The power play goals have come at opportune times: Niederreiter’s power play goal against the Coyotes tied the game 3-3 in the dying minutes of the second period and set the stage for a dominant third, while Scheifele’s marker against the Blues put the Jets in the driver’s seat early by giving them 1-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game.
The penalty kill, meanwhile, has also tightened up. They were operating at just 71.88 per cent efficiency entering November and had given up at least one power play goal in eight of nine games, but killed off 10/11 penalties in the three-game winning streak to improve their percentage to 73.33.
The Jets still have a long way to go to get the penalty killing percentage back to a respectable number — and even further to go to get it back to the 82.43 per cent they operated at last season — but their performance against the Predators was encouraging.
The team ran into more penalty trouble than usual but killed off all five of their infractions for their second-straight “clean sheet,” including two in a row in the second period — both were for having too many men on the ice, meaning some remedial counting lessons may be in their future — and three in the third. They even managed to keep the puck out of their net for nearly two minutes of six-on-four play when the Predators, down by three, pulled Juuse Saros when Cole Perfetti was in the box for hooking.
A team’s power play and penalty killing percentages, when combined, should add up to 100. The Jets aren’t there yet with a 91.70 figure, but continued improvement on those figures will further complement their already-strong five-on-five play which has been overshadowed by special teams ineptitude in a couple of tight games that ended in losses.
3: Jets Find an Extra Gear in Divisional Games
By beating the Coyotes, Blues (for the second time), and Predators, the Jets are 4-0-0 in games against Central Division opponents this season.
The strong early results in the so-called “four-point games” — the ones that matter most in the standings — are an extension of success last season in that area. In 2022-23, the Jets’ 18-8-0 record against Central Division foes was the main reason they snuck into the playoffs in the second Western Conference wild-card spot despite profound second-half struggles.
The Jets went on a variety of team-building outings on their three-game road trip and look tight knit coming out of it, which is perhaps part of the reason they’ve kicked into an “extra gear” that’s manifested itself in a number of ways. They’ve gotten some great individual performances, from Connor and Niederreiter’s hat tricks, to Brenden Dillon’s two-goal game, to Dylan Samberg’s eight-blocked-shot game.
They’ve shown some snarl with physical play and fisticuffs. Lowry dropped the gloves twice in a six-minute span of the first period against the Predators, the first time to defend Rasmus Kupari and the second time to defend himself after laying out Marc Del Gaizo and getting jumped by Cole Smith.
They’ve also picked up teammates going through a tough time. A number of Minnesota-born Jets were close friends with Adam Johnson, who tragically died in an EIHL game last month after getting his neck cut by a skate. True North Sports & Entertainment chartered Iafallo, Neal Pionk, Dominic Toninato, and Samberg to Johnson’s funeral in Hibbing, Minn. on Monday.
Against the Blues, just 24 hours later, Pionk — who was a groomsman at Johnson’s wedding and has been open about his struggles with — scored a goal and was visibly emotional on the bench after. Ehlers and Dylan DeMelo were there to give him hugs.
Jets Look to Continue Streak Against Stars, Be the First Winnipeg Winners of the Day
The Jets will look to push the winning streak to a season-high four on Nov. 11 against another Divisional rival in the first-place Dallas Stars.
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It’s the first game in what is a big day sports-wise in Winnipeg: at 5:30 p.m., the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers will take on the B.C. Lions in the much-hyped West Final, with the winner advancing to the Grey Cup Championship. If the Bombers are victorious, they’ll be appearing in their fourth-straight Grey Cup.
There’s no doubt plenty of fans attending the 2 p.m. game at Canada Life Centre will head straight to IG Field on the University of Manitoba campus after the final whistle. The Jets pushed the game ahead to 2 p.m. from 3 p.m. a few weeks ago to accommodate.