Missing in action: goals

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This article was published 11/01/2016 (3556 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just a guess, but it’s fair to say if you had quizzed hockey fans outside of the MTS Centre about Linus Ullmark prior to puck drop Sunday, the responses would have been variations on:

❚ He is the Buffalo Sabres’ starting netminder against the Winnipeg Jets;

❚ He is a Swede and a Sabres sixth-round draft pick;

❚ He is the dude with a yellow Minions-themed mask;

❚ Linus Who-mark? Is that the kid from the Peanuts?

And at about 5 p.m. Sunday, those same fans would have said Ullmark was the bleepedy-bleep who stonewalled the Jets in a 4-2 victory by kicking out 42 of 44 shots. It was a similar storyline on New Year’s Eve when Louis Domingue led the Arizona Coyotes to a win over the Jets, and Cam Talbot with the Edmonton Oilers before Christmas.

As Blake Wheeler said Sunday after the loss to Buffalo: “We’ve made a lot of goalies look hot these days.”

There was an obvious frustration to Wheeler’s tone and with good reason. In addition to the 44 shots on the Sabres’ net the Jets also had 13 more attempts blocked and another 10 miss the mark.

And so, as Sunday spilled into Monday, the Jets kept hammering away on an old refrain: the shot total means diddly squat unless the Jets get some traffic in front of the goaltender and then bang home some greasy goals.

Yes, the fancy markers earn a highlight-of-the-night clip on Sportscentre, but the dirty goals usually mean wins.

“That’s something we talked about today,” said Jets winger Drew Stafford after Monday’s practice. “We had some grade-A chances… myself, I had a great chance at the end of the first and if I put that away, things could be different.

“A lot of the shots we had, there was no one within 10 feet of the net. Goalies at this level are going to make those saves, so we need more traffic. Goalies aren’t going to get beat too often on uncontested shots from outside the tops of the circles. It’s just not going to happen.”

Interestingly, the Jets are middle of the pack in terms of shooting percentage — at 8.93 per cent they rank 15th overall in the NHL — but since early December in particular, they have made some stars out of players such as Ullmark, Talbot and Domingue. The three stars selected at the end of every night are hardly an accurate barometer, but consider that since Dec. 6 an opposition goaltender has been named a star in 10 of the 15 games the Jets have played (Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck earned a star in four of those contests, FYI).

Some nights, such as Dec. 21 in Edmonton when Talbot was sensational in making 44 saves in a 3-1 win, those stops include one OMG stop after another. And on others, such as Sunday, they made life much, much easier for Ullmark.

“We are getting pucks to the net. It’s getting more action off what we would consider not the ‘A’ chances,” said Jets coach Paul Maurice. “You’ve got Stafford, you’ve got (Nikolaj) Ehlers and you’ve got (Bryan) Little (missed opportunities vs. the Sabres)… those are ‘A’ chances. But then pucks that get to the net, we’re not getting any second shots off those, we’re not creating any rebounds off those, the goaltenders are eating them up. Some of it is good rebound control by them.

“The difference would be we had a high shot total in Edmonton and a real high ‘A’ chance total. We had a high shot total in the last game, but not a lot of ‘A’ chances and then a lot of pucks didn’t come off the goaltender because we just didn’t have traffic.”

Both Jets goals in Sunday’s loss — Wheeler tipping home a Bryan Little shot from just outside the crease and Mathieu Perreault’s power-play marker with Andrew Ladd in front — were classic examples of what the Jets are vowing to do more of going forward. Saying and doing are two different things, however, and it’s why it is continually a topic of conversation across the NHL: today’s goaltenders are simply too good to expect to beat them repeatedly when they have a clean look.

“(Ullmark) did make some big saves for them, but the area we’re looking at is the traffic in front of him. That will be our focus going forward,” said Jets forward Chris Thorburn. “If you look at the goals that have been scored, they’re not the prettiest. It’s a matter of going to those areas.

“It’s been a concern, not just from (Sunday) but it’s something we’ve talked about for a little bit. Create some traffic in front of the goalie, take away his eyes and as a result, hopefully, we’ll get more goals.”

Ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait