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Jets fall 4-2 to Sabres, look to bounce back against Caps

December 15, 2021, 9:36 PM ET [46 Comments]
Jacob Billington
Winnipeg Jets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Rasmus Dahlin led the struggling Buffalo Sabres to a 4-2 victory against the Winnipeg Jets in the Jets home arena. While having a tough time against the league bottom teams, especially at home (4-2 loss against Buffalo, 1-0 loss against Arizona and 2-0 against the New York Islanders), they have gone 3-2-1 during the month of December. Outscoring their opponents 24-18, they have had a relatively solid month so far.

Currently sitting on point back of the Edmonton Oilers for the 2nd Wild Card spot in the West, the Jets are getting pretty frusterated with how things are going. As of late, the team has been a lot sloppier with their defending, and their star-power isnt producing at the rate they were. While I do think that the defensive system needs a complete overhaul in this teams game, the lack of depth scoring has been a glaring problem as well. The bottom-six (or five with Wheeler injured), includes Jansen Harkins, Kristian Vesalainen, Adam Lowry, Dominic Toninato, Paul Stastny, and Evgeny Svechnikov. During the month of December they have a combined 10 points in 6 games. That just isn't even close to enough.

While it doesn't quite feel it, at least in my opinion, the top end players have been scoring at a solid rate still, just, not like it was in October. Of course a lot of these numbers are boosted by the 8-4 win against the Devils, the top-6 players have:

Blake Wheeler: 1-9-10 - 5GP
Mark Scheifele: 5-4-9 - 6GP
Kyle Connor: 4-4-8 - 6GP
P.L Dubois: 3-4-7 - 6GP
Nikolaj Ehlers: 5-0-5 - 6GP
Andrew Copp 1-2-3 - 6GP

And just some numbers on defense:

Neal Pionk: 0-4-4 - 3GP
Nate Schmidt: 0-4-4 - 6GP

With the rest of the defenders having 2 or less points.

Again, the point to drive home is depth scoring. The Jets really need to have this figured out if they want to continue a run for the playoffs. Losing Wheeler for a few weeks hurts, as we are seeing lines jumbled in-game again, which can work, but often takes people off of the same page.

Coming up Friday, the Jets take on the Washington Capitals. Expect a much tighter played game from Winnipeg, and hope for depth scoring. Goaltending hasn't been a problem, and a lot of the faults trace back to the coaching staff.

With the league having countless players and staff testing positive, the schedule is running on a day-by-day basis. I expect that we see a pause from around December 19th till Boxing Day, or December 26th for my Non-Canadian readers. While all executives are saying there is no plan for stoppage, I think the situation is rising faster than they could have anticipated.

Looking at the Olympics as well, with Erik Karlsson being the latest to speak out about his discomfort about going, I also expect that the NHL pulls out of their spots in the Bejing Olympics. While it is very frusterating, after so much anticipation, the 3-5 week quarantine rules set by the Chinese Government is a lot for the players to go through. Obviously, I am with the majority of hockey fans and believe that sure, everything could go great and nobody tests positive, which we have seen for most of the season so far, but it is a huge risk and I completely understand the hesitation.

Let me know your thoughts on all of this, including Olympics, Jets, and the COVID-19 outbreak around the league.

Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoy!

Jacob Billington
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