Jets must return to ‘winning ugly’ to correct course vs. Avalanche

Credit: James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports

The Calgary Flames’ general lack of direction makes it easy to forget they were a tier 1 Stanley Cup contender two years ago. They had offensive stars in Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau but were at their best when they focused first on their smothering, third-ranked defense. Everything went wrong when, drunk off a 9-6 Game 1 drubbing of the hated Edmonton Oilers, the Flames convinced themselves they could outskill a team featuring Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Calgary forgot who they were, played into their rivals’ hands and failed to win another game in the second-round series.

Two years on and 13 hours east, the Winnipeg Jets are falling into a similar trap.

The Jets are not playing against the Oilers, but a Colorado Avalanche team that ices Valeri Nichushkin, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mikko Rantanen in front of Cale Makar and Devon Toews to end games; their odds of winning an open, ‘fun’ series may be worse than Calgary’s were in 2022. Though Winnipeg carved the Avs for seven goals in Game 1 as Kyle Connor enjoyed his best game of the season, they gave six back; Neal Pionk alone had three giveaways leading to goals. The Jets overplayed, forgot their identity, and lived to tell about it despite being out-chanced 29-16. Fair enough. Every team wins a weird one once in a while, and in Game 2, Winnipeg would batten down the hatches and do it the right way…right?

Things went to plan for more than half the game, and the Jets went up 2-1 after a tic-tac-toe sequence ended in a beautiful goal from Mark Scheifele. Then Artturi Lehkonen tied the game with a net-front tip of a Makar wrister, and the Jets seemed to forget everything that had worked to that point. Connor Hellebuyck flubbed a clearance that put Zach Parise and the Avs in the lead. After Josh Manson left the penalty box to score a breakaway off, you guessed it, a Jets turnover, Avalanche netminder Alexandar Georgiev was not in the mood to give the home team any more free passes. Winnipeg’s lazy reliance on skill and creativity against a team with more of it bought them a 5-2 defeat.

This year’s Jets are a contending team. That much was clear when they dispatched the Dallas Stars and the Avalanche by a combined score of 10-0 in consecutive games earlier this month. The problems in Winnipeg are between the ears. After acquiring Sean Monahan at the All-Star break and seeing their PP% jump eight points, the Manitobans began to fancy themselves a high-scoring team. After their offense dried up and they shipped four goals per game in a seven-game losing streak to end March, the Jets learned their lesson, started doing the hard work again, and ended their season on an eight-game heater with a team GAA of 1.88.

Was one 13-goal shootout enough for the Jets’ to forget that they don’t score enough (15th in regular-season offense) for their game to work without clean zone exits? Probably not, but they still opted for quick fixes and hero plays when the going got tough during Tuesday’s game. More concerning than that, few of their regular-season strengths were on display.

The Jets would have felt that beyond the MacKinnon line, on whom they could sic Adam Lowry’s shutdown unit, they had the better forwards. It hasn’t gone that way; Miles Wood, who went 25 games without a goal to end the regular season, had a tally from the Avs’ third line in both games. He, Ross Colton, and Joel Kiviranta are caving in the Jets (64.58% of chances) at 5-on-5. Winnipeg’s vaunted second line of Nikolaj Ehlers, Monahan, and Tyler Toffoli dictate just 30% of expected goals, meanwhile, and the actual results (0 points) aren’t any better. Lowry has his hands full with MacKinnon, and though Vlad Namestnikov and Alex Iaffalo are two of the best fourth-line players in the NHL, it’s a bad sign that their connection with David Gustafsson is the only Jets unit (59.85% of expected goals, 62.50% of high-danger chances) tilting the ice in Winnipeg’s favor.

The other Winnipeg area of dominance is (or should be) in goal, where ‘Helly’ will win his second Vezina in a couple months. In Game 1, that advantage was apparent despite the inflated scoreline; the future Hall-of-Famer stopped 40 shots as Georgiev crumbled. In Game 2, though, Georgiev was the steady hand and Hellebuyck the goat. Wood caught the latter with a fluttering, five-hole wrister before he and Pionk lost the puck for Parise’s goal. Manson did not look out of place during his breakaway, but Hellebuyck would have expected to spurn the veteran defenseman. Without an elite defensive corps beyond Josh Morrissey and Dylan DeMelo, this team relies on league-best goaltending. Will coach Rick Bowness expect it from Laurent Brossoit (15-5-2, 2.00 GAA) if Hellebuyck falters again in Denver?

None of this is to say the Avalanche’s offensive successes are strictly dependent on the Jets’ ongoing identity crisis. Colorado is a recent champion many tabbed to repeat the trick even after an April cold snap. Avs bench boss Jared Bednar pushes his elite top unit harder than any other coach in the sport, and facing down MacKinnon and Co. for well over 20 minutes a night would be a tall task even for a team firing on all cylinders. For an outfit playing uneven hockey and feeling some heat after a 1-1 home split, it’s a nightmare.

If the Jets want to change that, they must be willing to win ugly when they visit the best home team in hockey tonight and on Sunday. Connor, Scheifele, and Gabe Vilardi (11 points combined) have delivered the goods so far, but by now, Bowness knows they can’t outscore his team’s deficiencies forever. Slow starters Ehlers, Pionk, and Hellebuyck need to view their trip to Denver as a chance to impose their brand of hockey on the series and take charge of their destiny. If they’re content to let Colorado lead the dance? They have already lost. Just ask the Flames.

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Jets must return to ‘winning ugly’ to correct course vs. Avalanche

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