Consistent Copp headed for career year with Jets

Opinion

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This article was published 22/11/2019 (2116 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In this season of hardship for the Winnipeg Jets, they keep finding ways to stay in the hunt and push themselves into a playoff position.

Going 7-2-1 in their last 10, the Jets haven’t exactly re-invented the wheel and found a new way to play the game. What they are getting is gritty performances at crucial times, along with spectacular goaltending from Connor Hellebuyck.

The focus is often on the team defence in front of Hellebuyck, especially in response to covering for the lack of defensive talent on the blue line after trading away Jacob Trouba, letting Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot leave as unrestricted free agents and, most important, the ongoing situation with Dustin Byfuglien’s injury and apparent lack of passion for coming back to the game.

The Jets are undeniably playing this season short-handed — and they’re stuck because of the Byfuglien situation; they can’t spend that cap space to add to the roster without assuming an extreme amount of risk should he get healthy and choose to come back.

Part of being able to overcome that defensive loss is performing better offensively, because as much as you can focus on playing great team defence, eventually you’re going to have to score your way out of trouble when you only have one true top-four defenceman on the roster in Josh Morrissey.

Looking at the Jets so far this season offensively, and who is creating for their teammates, the top of the list is mostly who you expect it to be: Nikolaj Ehlers at the top, with a stellar 8.29 scoring chances created per 20 minutes at even-strength; Kyle Connor next at 7.62; Mark Scheifele at 7.23; and Andrew Copp at 6.56.

Wait a second… Andrew Copp?

It probably shouldn’t be a big surprise considering how good the Jets’ grind line of Copp with Adam Lowry and Brandon Tanev has been over the last several years, but with Tanev moving on, Copp has taken things to another level offensively. So what is he doing differently this year?

In terms of shooting, Copp is an average Jets forward, but his playmaking has stepped up significantly.

Only Scheifele and Ehlers have managed to connect on more passes to the slot than Copp has so far this season, which is incredible for a player who usually plays on the third or fourth line. You might be thinking at this point, if Copp has been playing so well and creating so much offence, why does he only have six assists? Only nine points?

Those are fair questions. There are both good answers and some that are less satisfying. For starters, Copp has been extremely unlucky so far. As a career 10.8 per cent shooter, he’s scoring on only 6.4 per cent of his shots on goal, so he’s due for more goals than he’s getting, and the assist situation is just as frustrating.

His most frequent linemates are Adam Lowry and Mathieu Perreault, neither of whom are high-end shooters, to convert on those chances, and while Perreault is shooting just fine, Lowry is experiencing the same lousy luck as Copp. Lowry is converting on just 7.4 per cent of his shots with a career average of 11 per cent, so more can be expected of him and Copp going forward, even if nothing changes.

The crazy thing about that line though, is that they’re working extremely well despite the lack of results. Perreault, Copp, and Lowry are third, fourth and fifth on the Jets in slot-pass receptions, a sign that the line is constantly penetrating the slot, but they have struggled a little bit with converting those possessions in dangerous areas into shots on goal, and goals.

A shakeup could be in order to get the most out of them, but according to Sportlogiq’s data, that line has an expected goals rate of 61.6 per cent while playing against the toughest opposition of any Jets line, and starting in the offensive zone just 32.1 per cent of the time, so I don’t think I’d mess with it.

If things do go south though, one line that the Jets put together for a short time this season that was absolutely dominant was Copp with Ehlers and Connor, who posted an expected goals rate of nearly 63 per cent, and Connor is a player who can be expected to cash in on a lot more of those opportunities in the slot than either Lowry or Perreault, despite also starting the season converting on fewer shots than his career average.

Breaking things down to just Copp, he leads the Jets’ forward group in on-ice inner-slot shot differential, the only forward on the roster above 50 per cent, and only Ehlers and Jack Roslovic have bettered him in on-ice shot-attempt differential, where Copp boasts a sterling 54.4 per cent.

All measurements of performance included, Copp has easily been one of the Jets’ most impactful and consistent performers, and if his puck luck changes a little bit, he might be in for a career year.

Andrew Berkshire is a hockey writer specializing in data-driven analysis of the game.