Five takes on Jets vs. Flyers

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This article was published 29/03/2016 (3478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Five takes on the Winnipeg Jets the morning after Monday’s 3-2 OT loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in the City of Brotherly Love…

1. NOBODY ASKED ME, BUT… I thought the Jets were engaged and solid for most of Monday’s game in Philly. That’s especially true of their No. 1 line of Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Nikolaj Ehlers, who combined to score both Jets goals and registered a whopping 15 shots on goal.

The point earned, however, brought curses to the folks eyeing the draft lottery standings. Winnipeg is now 26th overall, ahead of Columbus, Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto.

The Jets are back in Winnipeg now for their final home stand of the season — Ottawa on Wednesday, followed by weekend visits from Chicago and Minnesota — and the rest of the schedule could be daunting. The Jets finish the season with three road games in California — Anaheim, San Jose and Los Angeles — against three teams trying to lock down the top spots in the Pacific Division.

That’s potentially good news if you’re spending a chunk of every day messing around on the draft lottery simulators. To that end, yours truly took 10 turns on this one, www.tankathon.com/nhl, and the Jets landed the top pick once — it was also the only time they managed to finish in the Top 3. The average draft position on the tankathon simulator when I ran it was sixth.

On this simulator, nhllotterysimulator.com,  it took me 11 tries before the Jets came out on top. Edmonton had the first pick four times, Toronto twice, with Arizona, Montreal and Columbus also landing No. 1.

2. SO, LET’S ALL ASSUME THAT… Ondrej Pavelec will be in the fight of his life to retain the No. 1 goaltending job with the Jets next season — count me among the thousands who are enamoured with Connor Hellebuyck’s game — as Pavelec heads into the final year of his contract.

Maybe, then, as much as so many others are using this recent stretch of games to audition for spots and showcase their abilities to play certain roles, the same applies for the veteran Czech. He’s trying to hang on to something here with the Jets and his last three games — a 2-0-1 record with a shutout and a .957 save percentage — is his best chunk of work this season.

He gets an ‘A’ for that, even if the draft-lottery watchers are taking his name in vain for his timing.

3. NOT SURE HOW THEY CAN SELL THIS ONE… But the Flyers are sure under the microscope for having Claude Giroux in the lineup Monday against the Jets. In case you missed it, Giroux was hit hard by Martin Hanzal of the Arizona Coyotes Saturday night and looked to be unconscious on the ice.

A couple of days later, not only was he back at work as the Flyers look to lock down a playoff spot, he was scoring the game winner in OT. The optics aren’t good for the league, the Flyers and the NHL Players Association, who should be looking out for their guys, too.

Here’s a balanced take on the whole thing from Sam Donnellon of The Philadelphia Daily News.

4. THIS JIMMY VESEY STORY OUT OF NASHVILLE… Has got to be scary for NHL GMs, especially someone like GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and the Jets, who have four of their eight draft picks from last year now in college (Kyle Connor, Michigan; Jack Roslovic, Miami/Ohio; Erik Foley, Providence College and Mason Appleton, Michigan State).

Vesey, who just finished his fourth year at Harvard and was a third-round pick of the Predators in 2012, has opted to forego signing with Nashville and become a free agent in August.

It’s the player’s right, of course, but teams that invest so much in scouting and then both monitoring and helping develop a player like Vesey are then left with nothing.

5. AND, FINALLY… The Columbus Blue Jackets announced this morning the signing of 2015 first-round draft pick Zach Werenski, who will report immediately to the Lake Erie Monsters in the AHL.

Why is this signicant? Werenski was a teammate of Kyle Connor’s at Michigan and was drafted nine spots ahead of the Jets prospect last year (8th overall). He did spend two years at Michigan while Connor was with the Youngstown Phantoms of the USHL for three seasons before going to college for just one year.

Stay tuned now to see if Connor follows suit, or opts to return to the Wolverines for another year.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait