I hope that the latter stages of last season serve as motivation for the Jets this year. The Jets were in position to win the Southeast Division and make the playoffs until Washington stormed past them. Winnipeg was the odd team out, finishing 9th in the Eastern Conference and had to watch the playoffs from home. Now they move to the Western Conference and will play in the wide-open Central Division. They removed a lot of dead weight from last year's roster, with Nik Antropov, Alex Burmistrov, and Antti Miettinen leaving in free agency. I think they'll miss Ron Hainsey, who signed with Carolina, but it will allow youngster Jacob Trouba to perhaps step in and contribute. As far as additions, the Jets traded for Devin Setoguchi and Michael Frolik in separate deals, and also signed Matt Halischuk. They're going to be an interesting team this year, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do.
Projected Forward Lines:
Andrew Ladd - Bryan Little - Blake Wheeler
Evander Kane - Olli Jokinen - Devin Setoguchi
Matt Halischuk - Mark Schiefele - Michael Frolik
Eric Tangradi - Jim Slater - James Wright
Chris Thorburn - Anthony Peluso
The Jets have a top line that quietly put together a very nice season in 2012-13. Ladd, Little, and Wheeler combined for 119 points and all of them played in every game last year. Now that they have established themselves as an upper echelon group, those three will have to produce similarly to pace this team. Kane and Jokinen was a good combination last year, and the addition of Setoguchi will hopefully give them another goal scorer on that second line. Even the third line can score; Halischuk scored 15 goals for Nashville two seasons ago and Frolik has averaged 14 goals per 82 games in his career. Schiefele has had two short stints before getting sent back to junior each time, and this year he'll look to stick.
Projected Defensive Pairings:
Zach Bogosian - Tobias Enstrom
Dustin Byfuglien - Grant Clitsome
Paul Postma - Mark Stuart
Jacob Trouba
The Jets have not been a good team defensively in recent years, even dating back to their days as the Atlanta Thrashers. They gave Bogosian a 7-year contract worth $36 million this offseason, and everyone but Stuart is signed past this season. This is going to be a gut check season for the Winnipeg blueliners. The team played well for stretches last year and was in position to make the playoffs, so they know how to get there; the challenge for the Jets' defense is now to execute and win games when the offense isn't scoring. The backend will chip in on offense, but they're defensemen by name, and it's time that they become defensemen by trade, too.
Goaltending:
Ondrej Pavelec
Al Montoya
You could make the argument that Pavelec was the worst starting goalie in the league last year. He played in 44 games last year, most in the league, and went 21-20-3 with a 2.80 GAA and a .905 save percentage. Yikes. His goals against was third-worst among goalies who appeared in at least 25 games, and his save percentage was tied for fifth-worst. He also failed to record a shutout last year. It's imperative that he gets more rest this season, which will hopefully improve his play. The numbers that Pavelec posted suggest that the team played at least token defense in front of him, and they did; Winnipeg was 18th in the NHL in shots against at 29.7 per game. He just has to be better. Montoya will see more action this year and he'll also have to do his part for this group to succeed.
Special Teams:
When looking at areas of the game that the Jets can and must improve upon this year, you can immediately point to the power play. Their 13.8% conversion rate was the NHL's worst last season, and that dipped to 11.9% when playing away from the MTS Centre. Adding depth scoring this offseason will allow the Jets to give opposing penalty kills different looks, and that might be the difference for them this season. They need to get the power play on the ice more often after finishing 25th in the league with just 145 opportunities. Thankfully, they were the second-best team at staying out of the box, their 138 times shorthanded giving them a +7 differential. However, the kill wasn't good for them last year, finishing 24th at 79.7%.
X-Factor:
Let me put it this way: if Pavelec's numbers were 2.55/.915, the Jets make the playoffs last year. It's all on him this year. Granted, there were some good offenses in the old Southeast Division, except for Florida, and the move to the Central puts the Jets with some equally iffy teams, save for Chicago and St. Louis. Based on the teams they'll be seeing more often, his numbers should improve, but is it enough to steal games, or even record a shutout? That remains to be seen, and in my mind it'll be the determining factor for whether this team is playoff-bound.
The Jets will make the playoffs if...
... Pavelec is above average, the depth scoring that they signed delivers, and the special teams rise to the league average. To think that the Jets were so close to the playoffs with such awful goaltending and special teams bodes well for this season. I doubt that those two areas of the game will be as bad in 2013-14. With that guaranteed third playoff spot in the Central being completely unpredictable, any improvements there could be enough to see them through if everything else remains the same. Just as it was last year, the opportunity is there for the taking. Hopefully the Jets learned from what happened and can close the deal this season.
The Jets will miss the playoffs if...
... we see the same Pavelec from last year, a lack of synergy causes more special teams issues, and they badly lose the turnover battle again. There are too many talented offensive players on this team to have such a failing power play this year, but if it happens again the Jets will remain grounded. Pavelec can't be the same mediocre goalie again, but I've already beaten that horse to death in this article so I'll leave it at that. As for the turnovers, there were too many by the Jets and not nearly enough forced. They need to be a more opportunistic team and capitalize on mistakes. Do those things, and they might just break the drought.
No comments:
Post a Comment