The Jets aren’t actually this good. So why are they winning so much?

Credit: © James Carey Lauder

No, your eyes do not deceive you. I, Scott Maxwell, am writing a positive piece about the Winnipeg Jets. Or am I?

For those of you who have followed along with our power rankings here at Daily Faceoff, you would know that I have been quite bearish on the Jets this season, and for good reason. This is a team that currently ranks 15th in 5v5 expected goals for per 60 minutes, 21st in 5v5 expected goals against per 60, and 22nd in 5v5 expected goal share and third in PDO. Even if they are still a playoff caliber team, they aren’t playing well enough under the hood to justify their start, and they’ll probably regress at some point.

But despite that, they’re the first team in NHL history to win 15 of their first 16 games. It’s an unprecedented start, and to chalk it up to just luck would be doing the parts that are driving the bus a disservice. So what is playing a big role in their success? Let’s find out.

The big guns are scoring a lot

A big reason for the Jets’ early-season success has been how good their offense has been. Not only is it first in the league in goals for per game with 4.56, they’re leading by a solid margin of 0.43. They’ve scored more than double the goals of the last-placed offensive team, the Anaheim Ducks, who have just 2.20 goals per game. To really put things into perspective as to how much Winnipeg is scoring, the last time a team averaged 4.5 goals per game in a season was the Los Angeles Kings in 1988-89.

And a big reason for that has been the play of the Jets’ top stars. Kyle Connor has long been the team’s best goal-scorer, and right now he has 11 goals in 16 games, a 56-goal pace on the year. Mark Scheifele is usually one of their best point-producers, and right now is putting up a career-best pace of 21 points in 16 games. Josh Morrissey, who has really blossomed into one of the better defenders in the league, is scoring at above a point-per-game pace with 17 points (as is Neal Pionk, but more on him later). Even Nikolaj Ehlers, who has often been underused in Winnipeg, has 20 points in a contract year.

Now, this certainly isn’t going to last. Scheifele and Ehlers are both shooting above 20% (23.7 and 20.9%, respectively), and Connor has the most respectable measure of 17.7% of the three, which is still 2.9% above his career pace. All three forwards also have respective on-ice shooting percentages of 15.58%, 17.05% and 17.55% as well, while Morrissey’s is lower but still at 12.7%. They will regress at some point, but you can’t deny that they’ve been scoring a lot right now, and it’s a huge reason why they are where they are right now.

Connor Hellebuyck is doing Connor Hellebuyck things

Hellebuyck entered the season coming off one of his best performances to date in 2023-24. Among goalies with 30+ starts this season, he was first in save percentage with .921%, first in delta Fenwick save% with +1.55% and first in goals saved above expected with 39.35. And if you want to dive in to his GSAx even further, he saved nearly 10 goals more over the course of a season than the second-best goalie in that stat, Jordan Binnington. There really wasn’t any other choice for the Vezina that season.

Somehow, he’s doing even better this season. He’s bumped up that save% to .934%, his dFsv% is at +2.38%, and he’s already saved 13.32 GSAx, which would be on pace for a whopping 61.48 if he played 60 games again this season and continued that pace. He’s also still first in the league in both save% and dFsv%, and is second only to Lukas Dostal in GSAx, so it’s easy to make a case for him being the best goalie in the league again this year.

Some may credit the Jets’ defensive play as a big reason for their early season success, but in my opinion a large portion of their league-leading 2.13 goals against per game is thanks to Hellebuyck. When you’re only 21st in 5v5 expected goals against per 60 and allowing more expected goals than you’re generating, that’s not good defense. And when Hellebuyck has been dominant as he has been in the crease in spite of those chances, that’s the kind of play that will probably win him another Vezina, and should this level of play continue for the Jets in spite of the underlying numbers, it may even earn him Hart Trophy consideration.

It’s unlikely that Hellebuyck keeps up his play to this extreme of a level, but he seems locked in for another excellent season of goaltending. It’s the kind of play we should learn to expect from him, as he’s fourth in save percentage and first in GSAx since his breakout season in 2017-18. He’s arguably the best goalie in this era of the league right now, although the lack of a playoff resume will certainly tilt that argument towards Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Their second power play unit has been just as successful as their first

So far, all I’ve pointed out how much of the Jets’ success is due to their best players producing and the fact that one of the best goalies in the league is playing like one of the best goalies in the league. Not exactly breaking news, right? Well, I’m sure you’ll be even more surprised to find out that my final point is about how great their power play is, or more specifically, their second unit.

On top of having the highest-scoring offense in the league, Winnipeg also has the best power play, which is scoring at an extremely efficient rate of 42.2%. By comparison, the Edmonton Oilers record-setting power play in 2022-23 was just at 32.4%. While some of that has been due to their top unit made up of the aforementioned Scheifele, Connor, Ehlers and Morrissey, along with Gabriel Vilardi, their second unit of Neal Pionk, Cole Perfetti, Nino Niederreiter, Vladislav Namestnikov and Alex Iafallo have also been producing, and possibly even better.

Those respective players on the second unit have 17, 13, 12 and 12 and 6 points on the year, but five, six, three, six and five of those points have come on the power play. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you consider the time-on-ice allocation given to the top players (who on average are on for 66.91% of their power plays) compared to the the second unit, it’s a bit more impressive as to what they’re doing.

To exemplify this even more, out of the Jets 10 power play regulars, the top four in power play points per 60 minutes is made up of players on their second unit: Vlad Namestnikov (17.97), Cole Perfetti (16.98), Alex Iafallo (14.83) and Neal Pionk (14.03). Niederreiter, who’s scoring rate is 7.85, is eighth on the team. Regardless, their second power play unit is actually producing at a higher rate than their first unit so far this season, or at least is more efficient with their ice time.

Of course, this production also won’t last – for either unit. At this point in time, the Jets are generating 16.4 goals per 60 on the power play, while only generating 8.5 expected goals per 60. When your first unit is scoring automatically and your second unit is scoring like a first unit, that’s going to happen, but eventually both will settle down and find themselves producing at a more normal rate down the road.

I hate to keep raining on the parade of Jets players and fans, but unfortunately this run will end at some point. Based on the recent history of teams that have regular seasons of this caliber, they don’t win the Stanley Cup in the salary cap era if they don’t have the underlying numbers to back it up, so even a long playoff run still isn’t guaranteed for this team.

But that doesn’t take back what has happened already. They’ve already built up a massive points gap of six points on every other team in the league to the point it’d be hard to see them choke so bad that they miss the playoffs, and they likely don’t have to go 100% the rest of the season to win the Presidents’ Trophy. And right now, that’s because of their top players both up front and in the crease, as well as an electric power play.

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The Jets aren’t actually this good. So why are they winning so much?

The big guns are scoring a lot

Connor Hellebuyck is doing Connor Hellebuyck things

Their second power play unit has been just as successful as their first

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