Getting it done with ‘D’

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This article was published 18/11/2014 (3966 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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They haven’t won anything yet but the Winnipeg Jets have survived a daunting stretch of schedule in the NHL season’s first quarter.

With their unlikely overtime point after Sunday’s 4-3 setback in Minnesota, the Jets came out of a span where they played nine of 11 games on the road with a mark of 6-2-3.

They arrive home for tonight’s game at the MTS Centre against the New Jersey Devils with a record of 9-7-3 and remain in the conversation about positions that aren’t last in the Central Division.

It’s an early positive sign, as the Jets have played just seven home games as opposed to 12 on the road.

The Jets’ season to date can be divided into two phases, the first where they stumbled out to a 2-5 mark despite an encouraging season-opening 6-2 win in Arizona, and the second that started with an Oct. 26 overtime home win over Colorado that featured a patient, gritty and more defensively sound game.

Drilling into the results of this second phase since Oct. 26, here’s what you need to know about the team’s game today:

Schedule

It opened with a western swing that brought deserved losses in San Jose and L.A. It continued to a bumbling five-game homestand that went to waste at 2-3, except the final game here, Oct. 26 against Colorado, launched the current change in play.

Then the schedule got hard, but the Jets started finding ways to collect points.

Including that win over the Avs, Winnipeg is 7-2-3 in its last 12 games.

Schedule matters begin to balance out in the coming weeks, but there is one more stretch of real scheduling hell in January when the Jets will be asked to play six games in nine days, with five of those on the road.

Streak

The second-phase streak was a lot more palatable than the first

Early on, the Jets lost four straight to sink to 1-4.

From Oct. 26 to Nov. 8, the team went 6-0-2, coming within one game of matching the franchise’s best-ever run with points.

Goals for

The anomaly is the season opener, with six goals in Arizona.

From there, it’s been consistent — consistently low. The Jets are averaging 1.84 goals per game. They have been shut out four times, twice in each phase.

They managed to win one of those games, a 0-0 deadlock, in a shootout in New York.

This season, Winnipeg has scored no goals or one goal in a game 10 times.

Goals against

In their first seven games this season, the Jets gave up 20 goals. In their next 12, they gave up 20 goals. That’s a move from 2.86 per game to 1.67 per game, which largely explains the difference in outcomes.

This season, Winnipeg has allowed no goals or one goal in a game eight times.

Power play

The Jets have generally sloughed off their lack of power-play success, but it’s becoming a real problem if it already isn’t.

At 6-for-62, the Jets are scoring at 9.7 per cent, third-worst in the NHL. Sunday’s example of failure was insightful. Winnipeg wasted eight power plays worth 14-and-a-half minutes in Minnesota, including three five-on-threes amounting to 90 seconds.

The team has six power-play goals, and has power-play goals in just four of 19 games.

If the trend that shows a 29-22 deficit in five-on-five goals continues, the power play will become more of an acute issue.

Penalty kill

Here’s one item — it goes hand-in-hand with defence — that is helping keep the Jets afloat.

Their penalty killing, at 87.7 per cent, is among the NHL’s top six despite having to kill penalties for more time than any other NHL team (132 minutes 48 seconds as of today.)

The Jets, not surprisingly, are top-three in killing on the road.

Statistics also suggest the Jets are among the league’s most undisciplined teams, though some would suggest they’re not getting much benefit of the doubt from officials.

What normally balances out, penalty time, isn’t balanced at all right now. The Jets have a minus of more than 21 minutes on special teams (power play less penalty killing), third-worst in the NHL.

Shots

Analysis of shots on goal runs somewhat counter to the Jets’ performance phases, though some allowance should be made for the road-heavy second phase.

With a poor early record, the average was 31.6 to 27.1 (shots for and against). With better results in the last 12 games, it’s 29.9 to 28.2.

The team’s overall shots-against average of 28.2 puts it in the top 10.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca