Nine goals in their previous eight games with a five-game losing streak sandwiched in the middle. The Winnipeg Jets are having an incredibly difficult time putting pucks in the net, which wasn’t the case early on in the season.
Weirdly enough, this is the healthiest they’ve been all season, so that begs the question: Why the offensive slump for such a talented group? Bad puck luck or an inability to generate chances? This article is going to take a look at the key contributing factors to this slump.
Jets are Reluctant to Reunite Dominant Ehlers-Scheifele-Vilardi Line
The line combination of Nikolaj Ehlers, Mark Scheifele, and Gabriel Vilardi was put together out of necessity when Kyle Connor went down with a knee injury that saw him sidelined for roughly five weeks. At that time, the Jets were the top team in the entire NHL, as this line combination outscored their opponents 15-4 at five-on-five and powered them to victory on most nights.
The combination of Connor, Ehlers, & Scheifele has been the Jets’ top line for the previous two games and is another line combination that has been dominant this season. According to Money Puck, in 100 five-on-five minutes together, they have outscored their opponents 5-1 and hold an expected goals percentage (xG%) of 58.7 percent. Despite that, Rick Bowness voiced his displeasure after the Jets’ 1-0 win over the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday night, saying “I just didn’t like what I was seeing out of that top line” as he demoted Ehlers to the fourth-line and Alex Iafallo took his place for the back-half of the third period.
Reuniting their dominant trio of Ehlers, Scheifele, and Vilardi could result in a flurry of goals similar to Dec. Regardless of the other two players on the top line, Ehlers has proven that he can stuff the stat sheet and drive offence in a way that not many players can. Demoting him to the fourth line in a 1-0 hockey game, statistically, will hurt the teams’ chances to generate more offence.
A good sign is that generating offence wasn’t the issue for Winnipeg on Wednesday, as Bowness alluded to in the post-game: “Well, we had 84 shot attempts, we had certainly more than enough chances to score more than one goal… If we can create that much offence, the puck will have to go in soon.” To further his statement, the Jets had 24 high-danger chances and generated 4.29 expected goals against the Sharks. If they continue that against stronger competition, they will be more than fine offensively, similar to the beginning of the season.
While they are turning a corner by generating more offence now than they were in the middle of their losing streak, they still have a dominant top line waiting to be reunited, and letting them run wild again could give them a much-needed spark offensively.
The Winnipeg Jets’ Power Play Has Hit Rock-Bottom As of Late
Another reason for the offensive slump is because of the Jets tail-spinning power play. They are 0 for their last 21 over their past eight contests, and have failed to show any signs of improvement with the man advantage. By Money Puck’s tracking, they are 32nd in the NHL in expected goals per 60 (xGF/60) minutes on the power play at 4.26.
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Connor has struggled since returning from his injury, scoring only twice in the 11 games, one of which was an empty-net goal. His struggles have been especially apparent on the power play where he hasn’t generated much from the right circle. Despite his recent struggles, he has proven throughout his career to be a lethal goal-scorer, and that should translate to both five-on-five success and power play success in the near future.
If their power play struggles continue, it has a legitimate shot to cost them in a playoff series. If they were to play the Dallas Stars or Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, they would go into that series as the better five-on-five team, but they would have a significant disadvantage when it comes to special teams. They have lost a handful of games already this season due to their power play and penalty-killing struggles, and against strong competition in the playoffs, those issues could be even more critical.
Jets’ Forwards Look to be Emerging Through Chemistry/Rust Issues
The Jets recently acquired Sean Monahan from the Montreal Canadiens, who has yet to post a point through three games with his new club. Add in the fact that Connor, Vilardi, and Scheifele have all missed time due to injury at different times this season, and the Jets look to be struggling with chemistry issues. In the San Jose game, it looked as though Winnipeg is starting to emerge from those issues, with at least a few glimpses of chemistry.
Scheifele had this to say about playing with Connor, a combination that has been together a long time in Winnipeg: “When I play with KC, he always knows where to go. It’s like second nature. You know that he’s going to be there and that’s how you create sustained pressure and sustained chances is when you know where guys are, you know where your outlets are and when you get pinched off, there are guys to support you for loose pucks. KC is phenomenal at that.” Those two players have chemistry offensively, and it’s only a matter of time before that translates to an increase in scoring.
As for the second line coming in behind them in Cole Perfetti, Monahan, and Vilardi, Bowness said after the Sharks game: “They created a lot more tonight than they have in the other games.” Not only have they improved with every game, but Monahan looks to be more comfortable playing with Perfetti and Vilardi than he did in his first couple of games with Ehlers. To re-gain their scoring touch, I would reunite the Ehlers-Scheifele-Vilardi trio, or stick to the lines the Jets currently have. The power play is another story, but at five-on-five, I’d expect better results soon given what we have seen over the past two games.
