Top line’s dry spell coincides with Jets’ slide

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This article was published 16/12/2015 (3612 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Despite Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little and Blake Wheeler combining for just one goal in their last four games — three of them losses — Winnipeg Jets coach Paul Maurice said Wednesday he isn’t in need of more from his No. 1 line.

“More out of them offensively?” said Maurice. “I don’t think so.”

Nevertheless, some added scoring from three of his best players surely wouldn’t be turned down, especially for a Jets team looking to get out of a current funk, a hole that seems to deepen by the day.

The Jets, who fell to 14-15-2 on the season with a 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues Tuesday, are seemingly on the brink of a free-fall, waking up Wednesday morning at the bottom of the Central Division standings for the first time this season.

“(In) Chicago (Friday), we had a lot of chances. We put a couple of those pucks in the net we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves,” said Ladd, “And even (Tuesday) I had a couple chances there in the slot and Blake had a breakaway. If those go in, that question is probably not coming up.”

He’s probably right. Thing is, the goals haven’t come as easily — or as often — as they were earlier in the season. Little has 10 goals on the year but just one in his last 12 games.

Ladd, who led the Jets with 24 goals and 62 points in 81 games last season, appeared to find his groove recently with a three-game goal streak but has since gone goalless in the last four.

He has eight goals on the year but has disappeared from the scoresheet for long stretches. Wheeler is more of the exception. He leads the Jets with 29 points in 31 games — a pace of 76 points, which would be seven more than the career-high 69 he finished with in 2013-14 — but even he has just two goals in his last 14 games.

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“For us, first and foremost, it’s taking care of our end of the ice and leading by example from that standpoint,” said Ladd. “And then at the end of the day it is our jobs to put some pucks in the net.”

Perhaps most troubling is the same trio is the engine of what’s been a failing power-play unit this season; one that ranks among the worst in the NHL, with the Calgary Flames and Arizona Coyotes the only teams boasting a worse success rate than the Jets at 15.2 per cent. But that too isn’t much of a concern for Maurice. It’s the other end of the ice that needs to be cleaned up.

“You don’t need a good power play to win, you need a good penalty kill to win, that’s statically factual,” said Maurice. “There have been teams that have won the Stanley Cup that ran 30th on the power play over the course of the year. We got to get our penalty kill right, we need to get the defensive part of our game right.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

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