Jets' Mid-Season Review: Top line proving doubters wrong

WINNIPEG — A dark cloud loomed over the Winnipeg Jets before the season. 

They were coming off a 110-point regular season that amounted to an implosion in the first round. They swung and missed on several free agents — like deadline acquisition Sean Monahan — and let Brenden Dillon walk. And then there were the attendance concerns, with pockets of empty seats becoming commonplace in the NHL’s smallest market. 

There wasn’t a whole lot to be excited about.

How could this team remain competitive? Would we even see a Whiteout in the spring? Would their attendance take an even greater hit? The angst in this city was palpable. 

And that’s what makes Winnipeg’s first half of the season all the more gratifying. 

Nobody wins the Stanley Cup in January — something this franchise knows all too well — but seeing this team sit second in the NHL standings at the 41-game mark has reaffirmed how viable of a contender this team is.

For the most part, everything that needed to go right has — and then some. Connor Hellebuyck is on track to secure his third Vezina Trophy. Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor are playing the best hockey of their careers. The third line has remained elite. Neal Pionk is having a bounce-back year. Dylan Samberg has solidified himself as a top-four defenceman. And the team’s averaging 14,124 fans per night (up from 13,490).

The sky isn’t falling. At least for now.

Key Stats

Record:  27-12-2 (2nd)

Goals Per Game: 3.59 (3rd)

Goals Against Per Game: 2.54 (3rd) 

Power Play: 31.5 per cent (1st)

Penalty Kill: 77.6 per cent (22nd)

Best Surprise: The top line has silenced critics

I’ll be the first to admit I was against keeping the line of Scheifele, Connor and Gabriel Vilardi in-tact. 

It had more to do with keeping Scheifele and Connor together than anything. Since Connor broke into the league in 2017-18, he and Scheifele have remained inseparable despite being continuously out-shot and out-chanced during five-on-five play. The offence they created wasn’t enough to offset what they gave up the other way.

From Day 1 of this season, Scott Arniel made it clear that he was in favour of keeping those two together. And he wanted Vilardi riding shotgun. 

His decision to stick it out with those three has paid off. After struggling mightily in their first nine games — where they controlled just 33.3 per cent of the five-on-five high-danger shot attempt share — the Jets top line has been fantastic over the last 32 games.

Night-in and night-out, Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi have put on a clinic in offensive-zone puck possession.

Connor and Scheifele have continued to cook off of broken plays and are virtually automatic on two-on-ones. Their respective world-class traits feed off one another so well — which is why the Jets have been steadfast on keeping them together — with Scheifele’s knack for holding onto the puck and finding seams being a match made in heaven for a versatile scorer like Connor. And Vilardi’s the perfect complimentary piece for those two. Not only is he excellent at hanging onto the puck along the wall and making plays in tight spaces but he’s also become one of the NHL’s most dangerous scorers from the inner slot. 

Now that they’re able to exit the defensive zone and enter the offensive zone more efficiently — something they struggled to do in their first nine games — there’s little doubt that this line has what it takes to be a difference-maker in the post-season. 

Biggest Disappointment: The Jets' second line

The line of Nikolaj Ehlers — Vladislav Namestnikov — Cole Perfetti just ain’t it. 

Aside from the Nov. 3 game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, or Nov. 9 against the Dallas Stars, when has that line really delivered for this team? Sure, “a goal's a goal” but it should be noted that five of the 14 five-on-five goals they’ve scored came during beatdowns against the San Jose Sharks and Columbus Blue Jackets. 

If you go back and watch the goals that line has scored, a lot of them have been a byproduct of individual efforts, rather than all three making positive plays to create offence. The underlying numbers aren’t pretty, either. While they’ve generated 2.96 five on-five goals per 60 minutes, the Jets second line has only recorded 2.13 expected goals per 60 — that ranks 51st among 56 lines that have played at least 150 minutes this season, according to MoneyPuck.com. 

There’s just no cohesion. 

Stylistically, this isn’t an ideal combination of players to pair together. None of the three are overly effective at fishing out pucks along the wall, applying pressure on the forecheck or crashing the net. 

In a way, each player is miscast on this line. 

Namestnikov isn’t a second-line centre. He’s filled in the best he could but he lacks the creativity, offensive potency and size that you need from a ‘2C’, which is why Winnipeg got Monahan last year. 

Ehlers is at his best when he’s creating off the rush but neither Perfetti or Namestnikov thrive at that. 

Perfetti is at his best when he is facilitating along the wall in the offensive zone but his linemates have struggled to make themselves viable shooting threats. Ehlers, for all his raw talent, is an unpredictable player that’s hard to read off of — which is part of the reason why those two haven’t meshed.

Something’s got to give. Winnipeg won’t be making a meaningful playoff run if they’re relying solely on their top line for five-on-five offence.

Big Question: When will Kevin Cheveldayoff start wheeling and dealing?

The sooner the better. 

Aside from when they acquired Monahan just over a month before last year's deadline, most of Cheveldyoff’s big splashes — Paul Statsny, Kevin Hayes and Tyler Toffoli —  have come on deadline day. Mind you, sellers typically hold onto their assets right up until the 11th hour as a means of driving up the price. 

Three months out from the deadline, it still remains to be seen which teams are selling — which makes things tricky for Cheveldayoff to get a head start on acquiring reinforcements. But there should be a sense of urgency, though. 

It’s a quick turnaround when you acquire a deadline rental and the more time you can have to amalgamate a player and figure out where he’ll slot into your lineup, the better. 

Especially for a team like Winnipeg — who projects to have $9,716,622 in cap space on deadline day, according to PuckPedia.com — that could be in the market for both a second-line centre and top-four defenceman.

While it may be out of their comfort zone to pony-up a big package this early on  out of fear that they overpay and end up looking silly, making a move earlier could pay dividends. There’s no doubt that the amount of extra time Monahan got — he played in 16 more games than Toffoli — played a big role in him becoming such a key piece for the Jets at five-on-five and on the power play.