EDMONTON — Four months ago I would have picked the Winnipeg Jets. Heck, three — maybe two-and-a-half — months ago I had the Jets as a deeper team with better goaltending than the Edmonton Oilers.
That, my friends, is why it is a fool’s game to make playoff picks halfway through a season.
As of today, with their Round 1 series set to begin on Wednesday night in Edmonton, the Jets and Oilers have played each other nine times. Edmonton went 7-2 in the series, and won the last six straight.
The Oilers have beaten the Jets this season, as former Oilers goalie and coach Ron Low used to say, “for fun.”
So we asked Connor McDavid what that record is worth when the first playoff puck drops: “It’s worth absolutely nothing, ultimately,” he concluded. “Now it’s a race to four. That’s all that matters.”
On the other hand, he admitted this season’s divisional play leaves little mystery in the equation come playoff time.
“If you don’t know the other team’s game at this point, I’m not sure you’re ever going to figure it out,” said McDavid. “We’ve played them nine times. We’ve got a pretty good idea of what they’re like, what they’re trying to do, (their) personnel.”
So let’s start there.
Jets head coach Paul Maurice has matched Mark Scheifele’s line against McDavid’s unit for most of the seasonal minutes, and it has been a disaster. And by a disaster we mean that McDavid’s line gets 75 per cent of the scoring chances in that matchup, and he had 22 points in nine games.
So Maurice tried Adam Lowry’s line in that role, and the numbers were better for the Jets. But Lowry is a 15-minute per game, third-line centre. McDavid can play 25 if he has to, and history tells us that the extra 10 minutes usually is not won by the third-line centre in that matchup.
Pierre-Luc Dubois, Winnipeg’s 2C, is a game-time decision. He hasn’t practiced in a week and is doubtful for Game 1.
If he is playing at anywhere less than 100 per cent, Dubois should be sheltered from McDavid. Of course, then he’ll likely get Leon Draisaitl.
On his back end, Maurice doesn’t have the big, physical defencemen who can move well enough to make McDavid and Draisaitl earn their space, the way the Canadiens did at times this year. They don’t have a Shea Weber or Dustin Byfuglien, who can slow the two superstars through sheer physicality.
Josh Morrissey and Neal Pionk are excellent defencemen, but they have to use skill to stop Draisaitl and McDavid — not physicality — and that’s a bet no one in the NHL has won for a while. Neither is a bigger man than McDavid, either.
The point is, there are no secrets left here.
Of course, Maurice will be telling his troops that the season series is ancient, meaningless history.
“A lot of those games were real close and we know we’re going to have to be at our best to beat them,” said Maurice. “I don’t (think) a whole lot about the season. I don’t think the season series tells you a whole heck of a lot now.”
However, as the season has worn on, the Jets’ advantages over Edmonton have eroded. That starts in goal.
The reigning Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck had an .877 save percentage against Edmonton this year. Mike Smith had a .936 versus the Jets.
Goaltending is supposed to be a huge edge for the Jets. It has not been, thus far.
So, if we were Maurice, we would say to Hellebuyck exactly what we would say to all of Winnipeg’s top players.
Here is the challenge: Play better.
Raise your game, Scheifele. Blake Wheeler. Kyle Connor. Morrissey. Pionk. At worst, this group has to fight to a draw against Edmonton’s top six, and the Darnell Nurse-Tyson Barrie pairing. Then let the game be decided by Winnipeg’s superior bottom six.
It’s that old playoff cliché about needing your best players to be your best players. All season long, Edmonton’s best players have been better than Winnipeg’s best players, and now the Jets have some injuries, while we have never seen McDavid play at this level, or with this look in his eye as the playoffs approach.
Winnipeg’s stars have to turn the tables on McDavid and Draisaitl in order to beat Edmonton.
It says here, they won’t be able to do it.
Edmonton in five.
