Jets have to turn their season around fast

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This article was published 13/12/2015 (3580 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chicago — It’s becoming harder and harder with each passing week to believe the Winnipeg Jets are a team bound for the playoffs.

At the start of the season, the common belief among fans and pundits was the club would only improve on the previous season — a campaign in which they set a franchise record of 99 points with a 43-26-13 record.

But the Jets are looking nothing like they did a year ago. The squad currently sits at 14-14-2, much less impressive than the 15-9-6 mark it posted through the first 30 games last season.

It’s even more damning when you consider the Jets had a dismal start to 2014-15, winning just one of their first five games. They had the opposite start this season, coming out of the gate 4-1, with three of those first four wins coming on the road.

Since, the Jets have earned wins in consecutive games only twice. After the Jets’ 1-4 start in 2014-15, only twice did they lose consecutive games — and never more than two games — by the time the 30-game mark arrived.

Most of the credit for last year’s strong record through 30 games was due to a hot November — a month the Jets were able to pick themselves up off the floor after a poor October, where they went 4-5-1.

In November last year, Winnipeg went 8-4-3, picking up wins against the likes of the Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers and Nashville Predators, to name a few. Much of that success came thanks to the stellar play of goalie Michael Hutchinson, who posted a record of 4-0-1, in what would mark the beginning of him being anointed the No.1 guy between the pipes.

It’s been quite a different story this season. November has crippled the Jets.

They went 4-9-1 in the month, including a five-game losing streak. As for Hutchinson, that strong play he exhibited a season ago was nowhere to be seen this month. In eight games he’s gone 0-6-1, and just days ago was given the pass at the end of back-to-back games on back-to-back nights in favour of rookie Connor Hellebuyck, who had just four NHL games on his resumé before falling 2-0 to Chicago Friday night.

To be sure, it’s not exactly Hutchinson’s fault he was in net for some of the worst defensive efforts by the Jets this season. They could have benefited from some key saves at key points in games — he surrendered a weak one in the third period to the Blackhawks last week that ultimately cost them the game — but he can hardly shoulder the blame.

There is one constant from the two seasons — the Jets still like to take their share of penalties.

As was the case last year, Winnipeg is once again atop the league, averaging more than 13 penalty minutes per game. Last season the Jets were able to efficiently kill them off, employing a penalty-kill unit that finished 13th-best in the NHL, just a few percentage points from being one of the league’s best units.

This year, the Jets rank 23rd and have allowed a league-worst 25 power-play goals against.

Then there’s the power play, which hit an all-time low Friday night against Chicago.

The Jets had five power plays. Not only did they come out of it goalless, they were limited to just one shot — the same number they had while short-handed that night.

Heading into Saturday’s action, two teams had fewer than the Jets’ 15 power-play markers — Anaheim with 14 and Calgary with 10 — and only Calgary and Arizona boasted a worse success rate than the Jets’ 15.5 per cent. Winnipeg had nearly identical numbers at this point last season, the difference being they were limiting the goals against — in all situations — meaning they weren’t relying on power-play goals to win games.

The Jets are allowing an average of three goals per game, a number that hovers near the bottom of the league.

They had actually scored fewer goals by the 30-game mark last season — 10 fewer, in fact, than the 82 scored so far this year — but they didn’t have to find the net because theirs wasn’t being filled nearly as often. The Jets have allowed 90 goals so far, 20 more than at this point last season.

If there’s one thing that’s really going to prevent the Jets from making the playoffs, it’s their record against fellow Central Division teams.

The loss to Chicago Friday dropped the Jets to 3-9 within their division. It will be extremely difficult for the Jets to match the 16-8-5 Central Division record they sported last season.

The good news: the Jets still have plenty of hockey to play. And if last year showed us anything, it’s the Jets might be at their best when faced with adversity. Last season they were able to rally despite losing key pieces of their defensive unit for long stretches.

This year, if using the 99 points they earned last season as a benchmark for returning to the playoffs, they’ll have to conjure some strong magic. With 52 games remaining and 66 points to make up, Winnipeg will have to post a record of, say, 31-17-4 coming home.

That’s a heck of a lot of adversity. Let’s see now if they can find their old selves in time.

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca twitter: @jeffkhamilton