Poor penalty killing and league worst penalty totals could turn Jets into lottery team

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This article was published 17/12/2015 (3579 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The life rafts are in the water.

Looking to save the season, Winnipeg Jets head coach Paul Maurice turned his attention — and a considerable glare — to the matter of penalty killing Thursday.

He sees it as a key to any rise out of the team’s meandering mediocrity in the first half.

“I think statistically it’s a more important indicator… you can run an inefficient power play over the course of a regular season and still be an elite team and I don’t know that you do that on your PK,” Maurice said after a 50-minute practice, the majority spent on special-teams work.

The 14-15-2 Jets, who meet the New York Rangers tonight at the MTS Centre, are trending the wrong way when it comes to killing penalties.

The team has given up five power-play goals in the last three games and has sagged to No. 25 in the NHL at 77.3 per cent.

That slide has given them the title of most power-play goals against so far (27).

It’s a big regression from last year’s killing unit, which was a pretty decent No. 13 overall, at 81.8 per cent.

Last year’s good grade includes the context the Jets were the NHL’s most short-handed team in 2014-15.

This season’s bad news also includes the penalty question. Winnipeg is on track to eclipse last season’s league-leading total of 308 times short-handed.

The pace heading into tonight’s game is for 314 on the season, standing today at No. 1 in this department at 119 times short, and also leading the league in time short-handed at 193 minutes 33 seconds.

A reduction in penalties might be a good place to start, but until or if that trend takes hold, what’s to be done?

“We’re really trying to focus on getting back on our PK and being really good at a few things and not trying to be good at everything,” said Maurice, who used Thursday’s practice to coach up a storm in this department. “What happens to it is that it starts to get caught in the middle ground.

“When it’s at its best, it’s very aggressive, the reads are right and the saves are there.

“When it’s not, you’re half-aggressive, out of position and then your reads become unreadable. The game, you can’t figure out what’s happening and the goaltender is seeing a completely different shot than he normally would. And that’s just a matter sometimes of just two feet.

“So we’ve got to focus on being good at two or three parts of our penalty kill as a starting point.”

Jets centre Bryan Little, who usually gets a good share of penalty-killing duty, sees hesitation as the problem.

“We have to find a way to come up with big kills and that aggressive style we were at last year,” Little said. “If you get scored against, your confidence isn’t as high and you’re going to be hesitant, no matter what.

“I think that’s where we get caught. We’re trying to be aggressive but we’re caught in between when we should go (to pressure) and when we shouldn’t. We’re a better team when all four guys are pushing at once, when we’re all aggressive at the same time.”

Jets defenceman Tyler Myers also tied the urgency on the penalty kill with the Jets’ overall dip in defensive proficiency this season.

“You can win games with a good PK,” Myers said. “We’ve been focusing on the defensive part of our game and PK falls into that category.

“You take last game (a 4-3 loss to the Blues) as an example. If we’re better on the PK, we win the game. So I definitely think it has more importance than the PP, but there’s no harm on focusing on both.”

Maurice said he’s contemplating spreading around some killing time beyond the usual players he employs, and might even take a look at rookie centre Andrew Copp in that role.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca