The Winnipeg Jets opened up the NHL playoffs with a comeback victory over the St. Louis Blues on Saturday, giving the hometown club a slight advantage in the post-season series. Game 1 was a hard fought contest, with lots of tight checking & physical play making it difficult for both franchises to get consistent scoring chances and I certainly expect Monday’s game to be the same.
So far, the NHL playoffs have 5 matches in the books already, with the franchise that scored the opening goal winning 80% of those games. Of course that means the True Northers are the only team that has managed to comeback from being a down a goal during a game this year…a feat the Jets were successful at on two occasions in the opening contest. Probably not something Winnipeg wants to make a habit of, as St. Louis is typically very adept at protecting leads.
From the sounds of it, neither squad will be getting reinforcements from key injured players for Game 2, as the Jets’ Nikolaj Ehlers & Gabriel Vilardi and the Blues’ Dylan Holloway remain on the shelves. The one bit of good news for the Manitobans saw speedy bottom sixer Rasmus Kupari shed his non-contact jersey during yesterday’s practice, so he will provide head coach Scott Arniel another option at the forward position.
For the Match Up portion of our Preview, I opted to switch to playoff stats in the graphic below even though we only have a 1 game sample size at this point. Take some time to browse the numbers the Jets & Blues have accrued in the opening game:
The Winnipeg Jets have leads in a lot of the above categories, but there are some concerning areas in the data too. The most important of those include the St. Louis Blues dominance at the face-off dot and advantages in the special teams areas. Assistant coach Davis Payne really needs to get that penalty killing unit working better, because I am not sure my old ticker can take the stress I undergo every time I see a Jets player sitting in the sin bin. As for the powerplay, I am not sure there is a great fix without the return of Vilardi & Ehlers, so they should probably simplify things and go for the shoot & crash the net approach.
Winnipeg does have a large advantage in the advanced stat numbers, as they were quite successful in limited the quantity of shots that goalie Connor Hellebuyck had to face in Game 1. Unfortunately, more defensive miscues than typical resulted in a good percentage of those shots being of the dangerous variety, so the Jets’ defenders can still tighten things up even more if they can keep their zone exits clean.
According to the people over at MoneyPuck, the True Northers win in the opening match gives them a 77.2% chance of advancing to the second round. With another win at the Canada Life Centre on Monday evening, the site indicates that percentage would go up to 87.6%. So our Winnipeg Jets should have plenty of motivation to try and take a strangle hold of the series when the puck drops at 6:30 pm Central.
Let me hear in the comment section how you think the game will play out? Will Bucky return to his normal calm self in between the pipes? Can the Jets’ #1 line continue to win the battle of the top forward units? Have the Winnipeg defenders figured out how to handle the Blues’ forecheck? Who will play the hero tonight for the hometown club?
Go Winnipeg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
***15 exclamation marks for the 15 wins the Jets need to lift the Cup.***

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