Jets not just winning but improving with every game

At this point, the Winnipeg Jets’ record-setting start to the season has outstripped the scope of words like ‘stellar’ and ‘impressive.’ It’s downright mad what Manitoba’s team is up to right now, and the cool part is, the Jets aren’t just winning — they’re getting better as the W’s stack up.

Let’s face it, life was already pretty good when Winnipeg was 9-1-0 out of the gate. Of those nine wins, though, three came in extra time and eight of them were against squads that did not make the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Since their lone loss of the season, though — a 6-4 setback to the Toronto Maple Leafs three nights before Halloween — Winnipeg has six straight 60-minute wins. In five of those outings — including Saturday’s 4-1 win over Dallas — the Jets have held opponents to two goals or fewer and, overall, they’ve outscored them by an outlandish 27-9 in that stretch. 

In addition to beating Dallas, they’ve also pinged off wins over the Tampa Bay Lightning and the struggling — and, by extension, desperate — Colorado Avalanche. Of course, Winnipeg didn’t just beat Colorado, it blanked them 1-0. In fact, Connor Hellebuyck established a new franchise record on Saturday night by going 191:47 without allowing a goal and nearly made it out of that contest with another whitewash. Only with Winnipeg up 4-0 and under 90 seconds to go in the third period did Dallas’ Roope Hintz get one by him.

With the win, the Jets became the first team in NHL history to rack up 14 victories in 15 games to start a year. And, as you’d expect, their team stats positively sparkle. Winnipeg ranks first in goals for (4.47 per game), goals against (2.07) and power-play percentage (41.9 per cent). Its plus-36 goal differential is the best in the league by 16 goals ahead of plus-20 Carolina.

Individually, Hellebuyck is your wins (11), goals-against average (1.83) and save percentage (.935) leader among goalies with at least five starts, and the Jets are the only team in the league to have four players — Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers and Nino Niederreiter — with at least seven goals.

Josh Morrissey, with 16 points, is second in scoring among defencemen behind Cale Makar, which is basically like saying you have the No. 2 album on the pop charts behind Taylor Swift. Not really any shame in that.

If you want to nitpick, the Jets have average underlying numbers (18th in the NHL in Moneypuck’s expected goals-for percentage at 50.07 per cent) and the second-best shooting percentage in the league at 14.3 per cent. As a guy who always ends with 20 to 25 tucks, Niederreiter is probably going to cool at some point, and it’s hard to imagine Neal Pionk will remain a point-per-game defenceman (14 in 15 contests).

Still, none of that should stop the jig Jets fans are doing. Especially when you consider Cole Perfetti’s production (13 points in 15 outings) and Gabe Vilardi’s offence (seven-game point streak), both of which seem like very real improvements over last year, when Perfetti’s wheels were still spinning and Vilardi couldn’t stay healthy. 

If nothing else, this scorching start has all but assured Winnipeg a playoff spot. That might not seem like much for a team that finished with 110 points last season, but — hilarious as it is to recall — we spent September wondering if Dallas, Colorado and the loaded-up Predators were all destined to finish ahead of Winnipeg in the Central after an off-season when 2C Sean Monahan, strong backup goalie Laurent Brossoit, hired gun Tyler Toffoli and longtime D-man Brenden Dillion all departed as UFAs.

With this start, though, there’s no way Winnipeg misses the big dance now. That means, at the absolute baseline, the Jets are guaranteed another chance to show us they can be this good when it really counts.

Weekend Takeaways

• Stick tap to the Los Angeles Kings for finding themselves atop the Pacific Division, albeit with two more games played than second-place Vegas and three more than third-place Vancouver. Still, this is a squad that kicked off the year with seven straight road games after losing defenceman Drew Doughty to a fractured ankle in the pre-season. Let’s be real, people weren’t exactly raving about the Kings’ summer moves and this squad was viewed as a wild-card club, at best, in many circles. That’s probably still true, but Los Angeles — after beating the Blue Jackets 5-2 on Saturday — is 6-2-1 since its home opener on Oct. 24 with some good underlying numbers in that time. With 17 points in 16 games — including two apples against Columbus — 37-year-old Anze Kopitar just won’t stop. Alex Laferriere scored his ninth of the year versus the Jackets, and Brandt Clarke — who looks every bit the stud, right-shot defenceman prospect gurus said he’d be — picked up his 13th point of the season on Saturday. After going 13 contests without a tally, Quinton Byfield bagged two last week. If he can get rocking and this team gets Doughty back around Christmas, it could have something to say about how the Pacific plays out. 

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• Let’s just stay in California and shout out the San Jose Sharks. Specifically, the Sharks goalies. Mackenzie Blackwood had one of the best — and, surely, most satisfying — showings by a tender this year on Sunday, blanking his old team in New Jersey with a 44-save shutout. That came two games after Vitek Vanecek stopped 49 in a 2-1 win over Columbus. That’s not a sustainable winning model, but San Jose is 5-2-0 since starting with nine straight losses and you take what you can get when you’re a young and fragile rebuilding team.

The Week Ahead

• Sidney Crosby could hit the 600-goal mark with two tallies against the visiting Stars on Monday. There’s also a big tilt in the desert, where the Golden Knights will host the Hurricanes.

• COVID times flashback alert! The Devils visit the Panthers on Tuesday and stay in town to play a second game at Amerant Bank Arena on Thursday.

• After a six-day layoff for his team, Andrei Vasilevskiy will try to become the 40th goalie in NHL history with 300 career wins on Thursday when the Bolts host the high-flying Winnipeg Jets. The real jump is from 300 to 400, as only 14 tenders have ever hit that mark.

• Connor McDavid and the Oilers visit the Maple Leafs on Saturday night. Hopefully, Auston Matthews will be back and doing his thing in the Toronto lineup by then. Another first-overall pick, Connor Bedard, is also in his hometown that night as the Blackhawks invade Vancouver. Rounding out a delicious Saturday slate, the Jets are in South Florida to see their old coach, Paul Maurice. Could you imagine if the Panthers made it to a third straight Cup final and faced Winnipeg?

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Winnipeg Jets (14-1-0) The Jets’ next three games are all on the road, against the Rangers, Bolts and Panthers. If they still have one loss after that gauntlet, we’ll be writing songs about them. Overall, things are about to get real tough for the Jets, with 11 of their next 13 away from home. They see the defending champion Panthers twice in their next four contests.

2. Toronto Maple Leafs (9-5-2) After his tally in Saturday’s win over the Canadiens, William Nylander has 11 goals and a share of the NHL’s goal-scoring lead with fellow Atlantic Division snipers Nikita Kucherov and Sam Reinhart.

3. Vancouver Canucks (7-3-3) Saturday was a write-off for Vancouver with a 7-3 defeat at the hands of Edmonton, but Elias Pettersson went 1-1-2 and you’re always looking for signs he’s coming to life offensively. 

4. Edmonton Oilers (7-7-1) We can resume 1,000-point watch for Connor McDavid after his three-point night on Saturday. No. 97 is now just five away from the big benchmark with a massive game in Toronto on the horizon. 

5. Calgary Flames (7-5-3) Matt Coronato is sure putting the early-season drama behind him. The second-year Flame scored in Saturday’s 3-2 extra-time loss in Buffalo and has three goals and four points in his past three contests. 

6. Ottawa Senators (7-7-0) First Ottawa gets a huge OT win in Boston during Linus Ullmark’s return to Massachusetts, now they get set for the season’s first ‘Battle of Ontario’ in Toronto on Tuesday. 

7. Montreal Canadiens (4-9-2) Former captain Shea Weber will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday. My goodness, could this stumbling edition of the Canadiens ever use absolutely everything Weber brought to the table during his wonderful career.

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