Improving Jets shot count a matter of keeping things simple

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This article was published 24/11/2015 (3636 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a simple game, this hockey: the more pucks you get to the net, the more pucks are likely to go into the net. And the more pucks that go into the net, well, like former Winnipeg Jets head coach Claude Noel used to say, the more joy there is in Joyland.

So yeah, it’s little wonder the Jets lost 4-1 to the Colorado Avalanche Monday night when two-thirds of what the team tracked as “scoring chances” didn’t actually result in a frozen piece of rubber striking the Colorado goaltender, much less the twine behind him.

That has been a recurring problem for this team in a season in which they’re 24th in the NHL in shots on goal per game. The Jets finished 17th in that category last year.

“If we look at it as a ‘year’ question, that’s an area we can improve — drastically is too strong a word — but it’s a bit of a theme is a better way to say it,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice saidTuesday.

“In terms of how we ‘start’ offence, that’s an area we can improve — putting the puck to the net to start your game… We want to be able to make plays and we want to be able to make the plays that we see. But where we’re off our offensive game a little bit is I think we look too long for those plays.

“That would be an accurate theme.”

That’s a bit of technical talk, but in essence what Maurice is saying is the same thing frustrated Jets fans were saying at the MTS Centre Monday night: just shoot, man.

And, preferably, shoot accurately. Against Colorado, the Jets registered just 21 shots on goal, but also had 20 shots miss the net and another 20 that were blocked. That’s not the first time that’s happened, either.

“We’ve had this two or three times this year,” says Maurice, “where only a third of our shot attempts got to the net. And that’s a number that concerns you, when you get a big number blocked and a big number missed.”

Jets forward Drew Stafford, who is as guilty as anyone on the team for looking to make an extra pass instead of just letting the puck rip, said the problem with a team such as Colorado is they bunch up the middle and encourage opponents to make perimeter passes.

“They give you the outside a lot so you feel like you have a lot of room to make plays, unlike a lot of other teams we face where they’re more aggressive and in your face and there’s not a lot of room in the corners,” Stafford said Tuesday.

“So when you get that extra second, you think maybe I can make that one more play or one more pass to try to get that tap-in goal. But that’s just not the way it works.”

So what now as the Jets head out on a three-game road trip that begins Wednesday in Washington?

“A couple of things we talked about this morning is getting more bodies and pucks to the net and not being as greedy with making that extra play or cycle. Keeping things simple,” said Stafford.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek