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Five-point night gives Wheeler, Jets reason to smile
WINNIPEG — Blake Wheeler doesn’t make a habit of basking in the afterglow of a top-notch individual performance.
The captain of the Winnipeg Jets has piled up enough points during his career and he’s said countless times that the only thing that really revs his engine is the pursuit of team success.
That team success this season has been tough to come by and the production has come in fits and starts, so you can understand why Wheeler was a bit more demonstrative than usual when he supplied what proved to be the game-winning goal in a critical 5-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Saturday at Bridgestone Arena.
The play was a thing of beauty, with Mark Scheifele finding Wheeler on the doorstep with a perfect slap pass that the veteran right-winger redirected past Juuse Saros.
“It’s been tough for me around the net this year so to have that one hit the net felt good,” said Wheeler, who let out a guttural roar as part of his celebration. “It was just a great play by pretty much everyone on the power play there. Everyone had a piece of that.
“The break gave us a little bit of time to look in the mirror and everyone felt like each guy individually had more to give. It was a good time to have a little gut check and like I said, we’ve had a lot of guys step up to the plate here and boost our hockey team and make us a tough team to play against.”
This was a vintage performance from Wheeler, who ended up with two goals and five points to lead the offensive charge.
Wheeler doubled his goal total to four and raised his shooting percentage from 2.8 to 5.1 per cent, converting two of his team-high eight shots on goal.
After the Jets fell behind 2-0 in the third period, Wheeler used his speed to take the puck wide on Predators defenceman Dante Fabbro and as the play developed, Mark Scheifele completed a perfect give-and-go with Ville Heinola during a four-on-four situation to spark a stretch of five unanswered goals for the visitors.
Wheeler seemed to be in the middle of everything, helping the Jets secure three of a possible four points on this two-game road trip as they improved to 20-17-8 on the season and pulled within seven points of the Anaheim Ducks, while holding four games in hand, in the chase for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference.
Wheeler used his vision and passing ability to set up Kyle Connor and Pierre-Luc Dubois for power-play goals, then capped the second five-point game of his career with an empty-net goal.
This was Wheeler’s ninth game back since suffering a knee injury against the Vancouver Canucks on Dec. 10 and he’s clearly making progress when it comes to getting his skating legs back.
After a slow start by his standards which was clearly impacted by a bout with COVID-19 that kept him out of five games, Wheeler is back to feeling like himself.
The timing of the schedule postponements in late December and early January meant that Wheeler missed only nine games during his recovery, but his season was interrupted for a second time, leaving him to try and play catch-up after sitting out the longest stretch of his 14-season career.
Coming out of the NHL All-Star break, Wheeler was among those looking and sounding rejuvenated and he delivered a virtuoso performance against the Predators, one night after the Jets suffered a frustrating 4-3 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars.
“The time off probably allowed him to reset and it allowed him to come back refreshed,” said Jets interim head coach Dave Lowry. “Since he’s been back from his injury, he’s played very solid for us. It’s nice to see him get rewarded.
“That’s why he’s our leader, and he showed the resiliency that you need. These guys are proud and they’re elite athletes and keep themselves in great shape. His minutes were big and he still had stuff left in the tank.”
The power-play markers from Wheeler and Dubois came during a five-minute major to Predators defenceman Mark Borowiecki, who also received a game misconduct for elbowing Jets winger Evgeny Svechnikov at 9:36 of the third period, to snap a 2-2 deadlock.
There have been times this season when the Jets power play has not been able to convert similar opportunities, but this was not one of them as Winnipeg finished 3-for-8 with the man-advantage.
The Jets will face the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday night to continue a stretch of five games against Central Division opponents coming out of the break.
They have collected five of a possible six points, which represents some headway in the chase to leapfrog five teams ahead of them in the playoff race.
For all of the talk about the Jets being top heavy at times this season, those top guns came to play on Saturday.
Scheifele has now scored in three consecutive games and produced six points in those outings (including three points on Saturday).
That’s the type of response Scheifele was looking for when he said last week that the first half of the season wasn’t what he wanted and didn’t meet the level he prides himself on.
Connor is up to 26 goals (and hit another milestone by recording his 300th NHL point), Dubois became the second player on the Jets roster to reach 20 goals (including a team-high 10 on the power play) and defenceman Josh Morrissey chipped in a pair of assists.
The offensive production was obviously important for a club that surprisingly finds itself in the bottom third of the NHL in goals scored per game, but the Jets’ ability to tighten up defensively after allowing two early goals was essential to sparking this rally.
There were several other important things that transpired, like Adam Lowry coming to the defence of Heinola after he was hit from behind by Predators forward Tanner Jeannot and Brenden Dillon continuing to provide a physical presence on the back end.
The Jets have been standing up for one another a lot of late and that willingness to engage physically and make an emotional investment is precisely what Dave Lowry was getting at when he encouraged his group to commit to being tougher to play against.
“It’s easy at the end of the game to look at the stat sheet and seeing who scored and who had assists,” said Dubois, who reached the 20-goal plateau for the third time in five seasons. “But I think it takes a team to win and it takes a team to win, ultimately, the Stanley Cup. I thought everybody played well. There’s a lot of things that go on in the game that don’t appear on the stat sheet at the end and aren’t that easy to see but that help a lot. (Wheeler) had a five-point night, I don’t think I’ve ever had that in my career. So, of course, guys had offensive games, but even guys that didn’t have points played really well.”
Speaking of playing well, Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck was called upon to be between the pipes on consecutive nights and is up to 38 starts in 45 games this season.
Despite allowing two goals in the first six minutes and change (both of which changed direction off his teammates), Hellebuyck stood tall, finishing with 34 saves — many of which came in the first period as the Jets struggled to find their legs.
This was exactly the way Hellebuyck needed to play for the Jets to keep things interesting during the stretch run.
While Dave Lowry conceded there were conversations about going with backup Eric Comrie in the back end of games on consecutive days, the choice to go with Hellebuyck was made after considering his workload in Dallas on Friday and discussing the matter with him.
This was the correct decision and not just because the outcome worked out for the Jets.
“We did have conversations. (Hellebuyck) felt that he wanted to get back in the net,” said Lowry. “The big thing was when we got down, he settled the game down. He stayed focused, he stayed dialed in, and he did what we expected him to do and gave us a chance to win.”
Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green remains a relevant name around the NBA with his analysis of the game.
Green is one of the most respected voices among players when it comes to breaking down the game.
The four-time NBA champion has been analyzing the playoffs and recently pointed out something he doesn’t like that he is seeing.
Green took offense to the players who hold the ball when the clock is running out of time during the playoffs.
"It’s so unacceptable to do that during the playoffs."
Dray doesn't like players protecting their shooting percentage
Full episode exclusively in the B/R app @TheVolumeSports https://t.co/d7VkV57e9s pic.twitter.com/woqV9P91Gc
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 8, 2023
He explained that Stephen Curry is somebody that doesn’t hesitate to take these big shots, no matter how far he is from the rim.
Green admits that it’s easy for Curry to do this since he’s the best shooter of all time.
Then again, he recalled two long shots from Jordan Poole at the buzzer that played a big role in the Warriors’ championship.
Being Stephen Curry, it’s easy for you to take shots from anywhere, but Curry urging his teammates to attempt these shots has also helped his team.
The Nuggets and Heat have taken these shots during the three games of the series, but Green doesn’t like how shy some players have been throughout the playoffs.
If they aspire to win the championship, they need to go further, take more risks, and hope they end up helping the team.
Both teams have good shooters that can make long-range shots with ease.
Making a buzzer-beater won’t make them champions at all, but it can certainly give them a boost to beat their rivals, as Green explains.
The post Draymond Green Says Players Are Protecting Their Shooting Percentage In The Playoffs appeared first on The Cold Wire.
If I were to play armchair psychologist – a dangerous thing when doing hockey analysis – I’d say the time off between rounds three and four didn’t help the Florida Panthers. Partially because it killed their momentum, but also because it gave them time to read their news clippings and believe their own hype.
How had they made it as far as this? Well, if you read a lot of pro-Panthers pieces, Matthew Tkachuk and the boys burst through the arena walls like some collective Kool-Aid man, went right at their opponents, and made life hell for them. We spent a lot of time talking about Tkachuk’s edge and Sam Bennett’s hits and Radko Gudas’ nastiness and so on. You could easily come to believe it was their gritty play (with goaltending) that got them where they were.
In Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final they came out and played like that gritty style was their sole goal. They wanted to be the bully, and they didn’t do enough actual playing. As our own Iain MacIntyre noted, through the first two games Tkachuk played 34.5 minutes, while taking 36 PIMs. That’s not a great ratio for a Hart Trophy finalist.
In Game 3 he didn’t take any penalties, recorded no hits, and instead racked up a goal and an assist for two points, and was plus-3 in 18 minutes despite missing a chunk of the game in the quiet room.
When combing through the NHL’s EDGE IQ data (powered by AWS), it was fun to look at Tkachuk’s impact on projected goal rates (PGR), because he’s the primary figure involved in every piece of Florida’s offence. Their formula is as simple as it’s been the whole way through: they need saves, and they need Tkachuk to drag that offence to three goals (at a minimum) each night.
As you’ll see, where PGR is high, he’s the reason. Where it’s low and they still score, he makes the difference. Let’s look at Florida’s three goals from Game 3, and I’ll show you what I mean.
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The Game-Winning Goal
Tkachuk might be present-day Justin Williams in terms of clutchiness (that’s definitely a word, please don’t look it up just trust me). Tkachuk has scored three overtime winners, a series clincher in the dying seconds of regulation, set up another OT winner, and had a hand in Thursday night’s winner as well.
By Opportunity Analysis the OT winner graded out as a “low quality” chance, for fairly obvious reasons. It’s a clean shot from distance, unscreened, and Adin Hill is directly square to the shot without hindrance. (If he had a case for the Conn Smythe Trophy, this goal going in probably torpedoed that.)
Let’s have one look at the goal first. Watch Tkachuk come from the centre red line and go right down main street. His route is a teaching moment for young players looking for ways to be more involved in the offence.
The goal has some elements of the Game 3 OT winner versus the Toronto Maple Leafs, where a regroup and an assumed dump-in instead turns into the Panthers holding on to the puck and gaining the zone.
But on the shot itself — which Opportunity Analysis grades out as a low quality chance — look at the biggest factors which influenced that low rating, starting at the top of the clock, and working around to the smallest. Red indicates the factor lowered the PGR (as in, an influence that makes the attempt less likely to be a goal), and green the opposite:
The distance the shot was taken away from the goal line makes this chance less likely to go in. Same with how far away from the net the puck last passed across the middle of the ice (that’s “meridian crossing location”), and that the goalie is square to the puck (goalie angle) and in his proper stance (goalie height).
The only factors that say “this may increase the likelihood of the chance going in” are meridian related, and…they don’t actually impact this particular goal much (aside from the shot coming from dead centre of the ice, which is “distance to meridian”) even though the puck had just crossed the middle (“time since meridian crossing”).
But the model notes there’s no “screen” on the play here, right? Take another look from the goalie’s eyes and again notice Tkachuk’s positioning:
This is the Tkachuk factor and where guys like him, who are always around these areas, make life hard for goalies. It sure feels like he’s going to be in the lane of the shot, or will tip it, or will impact this play in some way, doesn’t it?
Maybe in 20 years we’ll be able to calculate a thing I just made up called a “mental screen?”
This attempt from Carter Verhaeghe has a low PGR, where Adin Hill should make this save, and Tkachuk doesn’t get a point. But you can’t look at the frame above and tell me he’s not the leading reason why Hill fails to make this save, and why the Panthers are now just one game back in the Stanley Cup Final.
The Game-Tying Goal
When the Panthers pulled their goalie, Tkachuk did what a lot of superstars do – they recognize the defence can no longer play man-on-man, and they look for ways to get lost.
It’s common when defending a 5-on-6 for the D to switch to fronting shots from distance, as getting tied up with any one player in front can lead to outnumbered situations down low (if there are two D in front, and one gets tied up while the other team has more skaters, well… that’s pretty dire).
Watch Tkachuk get lost behind the net, then emerge net-front beneath the Vegas defence.
We just saw a goal that graded out as a “low quality” PGR chance but, well, the game-tying goal was anything but. By the time Tkachuk got his stick on this puck, it’s the second-highest rated PGR opportunity of the entire playoffs. Look at all this green, it’s like Augusta National in April:
Great players often get themselves to quiet spots where if they get the puck, the opportunity will be so great it will lead to a goal (think Sidney Crosby constantly lurking off the back post with the goalie pulled). The Panthers created the bounce they needed here, and Tkachuk made no mistake.
Here’s where that shot attempt ranked in terms of PGR (the X-axis along the bottom), with the Y-axis being “goalie angle to puck,” as in, how open was the net? That’s Tkachuk, highlighted on the right:
The other one we’ve highlighted here is the save Adin Hill made in Game 1 of the Cup Final, just as a fun little bonus nugget, to see how ridiculous that save really was. But I digress. Back to Tkachuk.
The Game-Opening Goal
One of the greatest difficulties about scoring in the post-season is getting off the wall. Just four minutes into a game the Panthers had to win, Tkachuk made this slick little back-spin-and-slip to Brandon Montour, who shot from distance:
While this goal had nearly double the likelihood of going in than the OT winner, it still grades out as a low-quality chance for a simple reason: most shots taken from this far out with this many people around hit something instead of going in. All the factors that stop attempts from turning into goals are considered, and there are a couple bodies in the “shot cone” (from the puck to the posts) here. The goalie is square, in his stance, and the shot comes from distance, as you can see from the PGR factors pie chart below:
What increases the chances of this going in is pretty clear: “possible goalie vision block” is bright green, meaning Hill simply can’t see this shot. (A neat wrinkle in working with this model: it seems a possible vision block increases the likelihood of a “low quality” chance going in, but doesn’t always help on a “high quality” chance because it’s just another thing that can get in the way of the puck.)
In the end, it’s Tkachuk who makes yet another cheeky, small play that influences the Panthers getting a chance, which found their way into the net just enough times to get the win in Game 3. They’re 7-0 in overtime in the playoffs, and the Panthers’ leader is a massive reason why they’ve had so much success in those situations.
Tkachuk’s got his paws in everything for them, and if he continues to focus those energies on offence, they’ve got a chance to claw their way back into this series.
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