WINNIPEG — Give credit where it’s due, Scott Arniel makes some sound in-game adjustments.
Sure, the Winnipeg Jets coach has kept his forward lines intact all year, but he’s also displayed a knack for making the right adjustments when the games call for it.
Late in the third period of Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, Arniel’s line-juggling — where he swapped Nikolaj Ehlers in for Nino Niederreiter alongside Adam Lowry and Mason Appleton — led to a crucial goal with 3:28 left in regulation.
Ehlers took the puck end-to-end and converted on his trademark slap shot from the left flank, making it a 4-3 game.
But the line blender wasn’t brought out to get Ehlers going.
“I wanted Nino to stand on top of the goaltender with Fetts and Vladdy,” Arniel explained.
For the first two and a half periods of a tight-checking affair where Buffalo clogged up the neutral zone, owned the middle of the ice and saw James Reimer put forth a vintage performance — the team’s second line of Ehlers, Perfetti and Namestnikov struggled to create havoc net front. Of the nine shot attempts they generated, just one came from a high-danger area.
A few shifts before Ehlers’ goal, Arniel’s initial plan played out as intended — Namestnikov walked into the zone, curled around the net, and set Niederreiter up for a Grade-A net front chance.
Come playoff time, Ehlers, Perfetti and Namestnikov’s effectiveness could dwindle — not just because rush chances decrease in the spring but because producing offence off the cycle or in front of the net is physically demanding. If and when — be it for a few periods, or even a few shifts — that trio of six-foot and under forwards starts to get outmatched in those situations, Arniel needs a backup plan.
What we saw against Buffalo could very well foreshadow how Arniel re-configures his playoff lines if that second line gets outmuscled. In that scenario, his plan ‘B’ lineup could look something like this:
Connor — Scheifele — Vilardi
Ehlers — Lowry — Appleton
Niederreiter — Namestnikov — Perfetti
Tanev — Barron — Iafallo
Lowry and Ehlers, alongside Iafallo, posted stellar results during a four-game stretch when Namestnikov got hurt in mid-January — heavily outchancing (27-10) and outscoring (3-1) opponents during five-on-five play.
“He wins a lot of battles. And I think he wants to use my speed as much as possible,” Ehlers said of Lowry after the two first played together on Jan. 11. “He creates a lot of room for me to use that speed.”
If Arniel reunites Ehlers and Lowry, history suggests Appleton — who was injured the last time they played together — would round out the line, not Iafallo.
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Niederreiter and Perfetti were paired together during Namestnikov’s absence, with Rasmus Kupari centring them. The two read off each other well in the offensive zone and that was before these past few months, where Perfetti has elevated his board battle efficiency. While Namestnikov doesn’t have Kupari’s speed, his hockey sense and compete level would be a perfect complement to these two in this hypothetical scenario.
We’re not going to draw some crazy conclusions from one game. But you can bet Sunday’s in-game adjustment won’t be forgotten about in the Jets’ coaches room, even if it came against a lowly Sabres team.
Last spring, Winnipeg’s downfall against Colorado was their lack of in-series adjustments.
This time around, you can count on Arniel not dragging his feet if his middle-six needs a shake-up.
Scheifele’s Slump
Mark Scheifele hasn’t scored in eight games.
Arniel chalked it up to poor puck luck.
“Scheif had a couple of almost empty netters [that] hit a stick, hit a blade, or whatever,” Arniel said of his first-line centre's outing against Buffalo.
That said, the pass-first centre has slightly veered away from that ‘attack mentality’ he unlocked through the first 63 games of the year. There were a couple of sequences against Buffalo where Scheifele entered the zone, peeled back and looked for a pass — a trademark move of his — rather than taking advantage of a clear lane to the net. It’s understandable why a world-class passer would opt to make the extra pass in a game where you’re getting stonewalled by a red-hot goalie. But sometimes you’ve got to take the shot, even if it’s not perfect. Especially when you’re tied for the fifth most goals in the league.
(Scheifele 5v5 Stats per game)
Self-Inflicted Wounds
Eric Comrie had an off night, surrendering four goals on 16 shots faced. That said, let’s not discount the mistakes made in front of him.
"Power play. Shorthanded. [A lost] Faceoff. And then a line rush,” Arniel said, listing off the ways in which Buffalo scored. “So we made some mistakes in some of those situations. You watch those games, they happen — when you get all those chances we had — all of the sudden [the puck] goes the other way and it's in the net. Haven't had one of those in a while, where we dominate like that and not come out on the wrong end of it. Their goaltender played really, really well."
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