Category Archives: NHL

Learn to Win on Road or Write Off Season

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
141604980 slide1 300x192 Learn to Win on Road or Write Off Season

Corey Tropp celebrates a Buffalo goal on Monday night.

TAMPA — As the Buffalo Sabres are in the process of pounding the Tampa Bay Lightning on this warm, wonderful Monday night in downtown Tampa, a visitor from the Great White North is in the process of learning one thing about an NHL playoff race.

If the Sabres are going to make the playoffs, they’ll have to win some road games along the way. The same thing now goes for the Winnipeg Jets. Due to that disappointing 4-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday night, the Jets blew a terrific opportunity to put themselves in decent position to take a run at the Washington Capitals and earn a berth in the post-season.

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Ondrej Pavelec can't let this happen too often.

It was a sad loss to watch on Sunday night. The Jets had a 3-2 lead entering the third period and they had played quite well to come back from a 2-1 deficit. Antti Miettinen had scored his first two goals of the season to give Winnipeg the lead and any Jets follower probably thought that was a good omen in itself. At some point, the first two lines will come to the fore and Winnipeg will blow the ‘Canes out of the rink.

Wrong.

Everything went to hell in the third period as the Jets defensive unit — rendered a man short due to the loss of Zach Bogosian who was handed a game misconduct for his vicious hit on poor Andreas Nodl (Nodl was left on his hands and knees groping around the ice like an accident victim looking for his cell phone in order to call 911) — collapsed late in the game and (a) allowed Eric Staal to get in behind them and (b) let Chad Larose walk in front of the net and shoot at a helpless Ondrej Pavelec.

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Antti Miettinen scores his first goal of the year, but the Jets can't depend on the fourth line

Meanwhile, the offense did nothing in particular and, frankly, a number of Jets forwards might have played their worst periods of the season. In the end, the fourth line provided the Jets with all of its scoring. Under the circumstances, that wasn’t good.

So now, the 34-30-8  Jets  find themselves in 10th-place in the NHL’s Eastern Conference, the Jets are now four points back of eighth-place Washington and two points back of ninth-place Buffalo in the East. They are also seven points back of first-place Florida in the Southeast Division. It will be a tough, uphill battle to make the playoffs.

The Jets return to action Tuesday night in Pittsburgh against the Penguins, a team that has hammered them on more than one occasion this season. It’s the first game of a three-game road trip that will take the Jets to Washington on Friday and Nashville on Saturday. It will be a real test for the Jets who are 11-19-4 on the road this season.

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Jets will need Evander Kane on the road.

But as Buffalo proved here in Tampa on Monday night, no matter how bad you’ve been (the Sabres were a not-so-sensational 15-18-2 on the road this season heading into Tampa) on the road all season, now is the time to snap out of it. As so many NHL coaches will tell you: “Now is the time for our best players to actually BE our best players.”

Buffalo plays five of its final nine on the road. Winnipeg plays seven of its final 10. Both teams have to win about seven of their final few games to have a hope of catching Washington.

It won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

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The NHL Playoff Difference Makers

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
steven stamkos 300x226 The NHL Playoff Difference Makers

Steven Stamkos

TAMPA – On a night when there were significantly more Toronto Maple Leafs fans inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum than Tampa Bay Lightning fans (yes, it’s the NHL of the 2010s), you have to wonder if the Lightning has the jam to reach the post-season.

After losing to the Leafs this week, the answer is, “Probably not.” The Lightning are in 11th place in the Eastern Conference, seven points back of the eighth-place Washington Capitals and still have a slight chance to reach the post-season – very slight after losing 3-1 to the Leafs on Wednesday. Amazingly, the Lightning also have the only 50-goal scorer in the NHL and tend to win a lot of games at home. But with an inability to win on the road, you get the sense that Tampa won’t be around by April 8.

The National Hockey League playoff competitors will be determined on or before April 7. That’s the last night of the 2011-12 NHL Marathon and the last chance any team will have to reach the Stanley Cup tournament.

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Likely NHL MVP Evgeni Malkin

Now, a big scorer like Steven Stamkos could chance all that. Stamkos is tied with Evgeni Malkin in scoring and leads everybody in the league with 50 goals (Malkin is second with 38). If the Lightning could get some kind of production – any kind of production – from their second, third and fourth lines, this team might make a run. But than again without NHL-level goaltending and with three AHL defensemen in the lineup, the Lightning probably aren’t good enough despite Stamkos’ presence.

Still, Stamkos is one of the players who could make a difference down the stretch.

There are now four weekends remaining in the season. In the East, there are 11 teams either jockeying for position or fighting for the final playoff spots. In the West, St. Louis looks like a first-place finisher, but 10 other teams are either battling for position or desperately grasping for a playoff spot.

In a league with so many teams still in the hunt, the final few weeks of the season should produce some dramatic play. It certainly will produce its share of heroes.

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Jarome Iginla

And with that in mind, we’re going to look into our crystal ball and try to determine which players will make a difference over the final month of the season. As fantasy players we’re always looking  to take a few shots in the dark and of course, we always find ourselves depending on the best players to BE the best players when the chips are down. It’s all about points in the playoffs and we need the guys who are going to produce.

Well, the chips are down and these 10 NHL players will have the biggest impact on who makes the playoffs, who doesn’t and where those teams finish (Note: Because they are already locks, we will ignore the stars of the St. Louis Blues, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, New Jersey Devils, Vancouver Canucks, Detroit Red Wings and Nashville Predators):

1. Jarome Iginla, Calgary Flames: He is still the face of the franchise. Iginla has 30 goals and 31 assists and while Olli Jokinen, Alex Tanguay and Curtis Glencross have all had a lot to do with the Flames run to the post-season, the team will pass or fail with Iginla.

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Ondrej Pavelec

2. Ondrej Pavelec, Winnipeg Jets: A second round draft pick out of Kladno, Czech Republic, Pavelec has been great at home and shaky on the road. So far this season, he has a goals against average at home of 2.24 and a save percentage of .925. On the road, his GAA is 3.38 and his save percentage is .896. He must go blind in other buildings. Still, he’s the favorite of the Winnipeg fans when it comes to Jets MVP. If he learns to play on the road, the Jets will make the playoffs.

3. Semyon Varlamov, Colorado Avalanche: The 23-year-old Russian has 23 wins this season and is 8-0 in shootouts this year. It doesn’t matter what he does during regulation as long as he can get the Avalanche (who are 9-0 in shootouts this season) past overtime. If he does, the Avs will make the playoffs.

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Joe Thornton

4. Joe Thornton, San Jose Sharks: He’s the team’s leading scorer with 16 goals and 51 assists. He’s never been a big goal scorer and he’ll soon pass his point total from last year, but he’s nowhere near the 114 points he got in 2006-07. If Thornton can light a fire under this Sharks team, they should prevail and reach the post-season. If he can’t, they’ll be playing Pebble Beach in mid-April.

5. Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings: Even though the Kings are 33-25-12 and battling for the final playoff spot in the West, Quick has been among the top goaltenders all season. He’s 29-19-11, but has a monster save percentage of .929 and a goals against average of just 2.00. The Kings can’t score, so Quick is going to have to get them past San Jose, Calgary and Colorado if L.A. is to get a sniff of the playoffs.

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Alexander Ovechkin

6. Alexander Ovechkin, Washington Capitals: What can you say about Ovie? When he plays well, the Caps win. When he doesn’t, they lose. He has 29 goals and 24 assists and is having the worst offensive year of his career. And yet, if the Capitals are to reach the post-season, it’s the 26-year-old Russian superstar who will get them there.

7. Ryan Miller, Buffalo Sabres: Miller is 9-1-2 in his last 12 games and as a result, the Sabres are back in the playoff hunt. After a slow start, he’s now 25-18-6 with a .915 save percentage and a 2.60 goals against average. If he stays hot, Buffalo could surprise.

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Erik Karlsson

8. Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators: Now in his third season, the 21-year-old Swede is being discussed as a Norris Trophy candidate. He leads all NHL defensemen in scoring (seventh overall in scoring) with 19 goals and 51 assists and he’s a terrific plus-15. Karlsson’s break-out year is one of the biggest reasons Ottawa is just two points behind second-place/first-place Boston in the East/Northeast.

9. Loui Eriksson, Dallas Stars: He has 25 goals and 39 assists and is the biggest offensive threat on a Dallas team that tends to think defense first. He’s the 19th overall scorer in the NHL and if Dallas is going to finish third in the West, Eriksson is the key.

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Mike Smith

10. Mike Smith, G, Phoenix Coyotes: A 6-foot-4, 220-pound goaltender who struggled so badly with Tampa last year that he was sent to Norfolk of the AHL, Smith is 29, experienced and never quite reached the level that most NHL insiders believed he could. This year, however, he’s been brilliant. He has a 2.34 goals against average and a .925 save percentage and he’s won 31 games. Who would have thought? If he continues to play this well, the Coyotes will make the playoffs.

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Jets Step Up in Game 1 of Crucial Homestand

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Evander Kane Scores.

TAMPA — There are nights when it’s simply a pleasure to watch the Winnipeg Jets. Even when you’re miles away from the rink and TSN Jets TV is your only link to the MTS Centre, the Jets can look like Stanley Cup contenders.

It’s true. There are nights when the Jets look like they can beat anybody in the league. Those are the nights when you realize that if they don’t figure out a way to win on the road, they aren’t going to get a sniff of the playoffs, let alone the Cup and yet you know they can play with any team in the NHL — as long as that loud, proud seventh-man is screaming in the background.

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Jets Score Again

Wednesday night back in Winnipeg, the Jets did just everything a team needs to do, especially against a red-hot team like the Dallas Stars. The Jets checked hard and hit early. They scored the first goal, went crazy in the second period with four more, got solid goaltending and then held on to improve to 33-29-8.

First star Andrew Ladd scored his 22nd and 23rd goals of the year as The Captain was outstanding. Evander Kane scored his 28th of the season, Nik Antropov fired his 11th and Eric Fehr scored his second as the Jets halted a two-game losing streak and stopped Dallas’s six-game winning streak. Thanks to that convincing 5-2 win, the Jets pulled to within one point of ninth-place Buffalo in the Eastern Conference. The 10th-place Jets are now just four points back of eighth-place Washington in the East and five back of first-place Florida in the race for first in the Southeast Division.

The Jets will now meet the Washington Capitals in a potential four-point game tomorrow night and then will wrap up this stunningly important three-game homestand on Sunday against Carolina. If the Jets expect to make the playoffs, they’re going to need to win the next two at home because they play seven of the last 10 on the road and we all know what that means. The Jets are 11-19-4 on the road this season and just lost two straight in Vancouver and Calgary.

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Ovie Comes to Winnipeg on Friday.

Jets coach Claude Noel knows that the real task now is to win against Washington. For the Jets, Friday night’s game is no different than a playoff game

“That’s going to be the task now,” Noel said, referring to Friday night’s game with Washington. “It becomes a huge game. We’ll look forward to that. We’ll go at it tomorrow and look forward to Friday. It should be beautiful.”

Beautiful? What a wonderful statement. And it comes from the only coach in the NHL who would actually use that term. If the Jets win Game 2 of this three-game homestand, it will, indeed, be beautiful.

Of course, if they play against Washington as they did against Dallas, their chances to get to the post-season will be more beautiful than Coach Noel knows.

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The Western Race to the Post-Season: Flames Have a Great Chance.

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
alex tanguay for rcs 300x193 The Western Race to the Post Season: Flames Have a Great Chance.

Alex Tanguay Outstanding Against the Jets.

This past Friday night, Calgary Flames centre Alex Tanguay played a game against the Winnipeg Jets at a level no one had seen for a number of years.

Playing on a line with Matt Stajan and Jarome Iginla, the trio combined for nine points in a 5-3 win over the Jets.

“It seems,’’ Tanguay told George Johnson of the Calgary Herald, “you have that little extra second. It doesn’t happen very often where you’re feeling good like this.

“It’s nice. Winnipeg is a skating team. You kind of get caught up in it. It’s fun. The atmosphere in the building was great. The Jets’ fans were here and they’re certainly very loud. It helps our crowd. They were trying to match up and out-cheer the Jets’ fans. For us, with the amount of guys we have out of the lineup with injury, our top guys have to be our top guys. We scoreboard watch a little. We saw what happened in the L.A. game (a 4-3 Detroit win over the Kings). And now we focus on Sunday.”

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Matt Stajan Scores in the Battle of Atlanta

If the Flames intend to reach the playoffs in the West, they must have their top players step up, they have to win most of their games down the stretch and they have to hope they get a bit of help. On Friday night, during the Battle of Atlanta (the Flames vs. Thrashers), the Flames’ best players stepped up and Calgary had a solid 5-3 victory.

On Sunday night in St. Paul, Minn., Jarome Iginla had a goal and an assist as the Flames beat the Minnesota Wild 4-3. With the win Calgary moved into eighth place in the West and now the Flames have a legitimate shot at seventh place in a Western Conference race that could be epic.

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Joe Thornton and Sharks Struggling

Right now, five teams could finish in any order between seventh and 11th. San Jose is slumping, L.A. has been terrible and Calgary and Phoenix have been decent and amazing Colorado has been playing tremendous hockey. What happens over the next 13-15 games will determine who is still playing hockey at the end of April and who is playing golf.

This past Friday we looked closely at the East down the stretch, so it’s probably as good a time as any to take a serious look at the West. St. Louis, Vancouver, Detroit and Nashville have pretty much locked up spots in the post-season — especially if 92 points is the goal.

However, there will be some jockeying for position before the final game on April 7. And there will also be some disappointed teams.

Let’s look at the West with 13-15 games left:

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Shane Doan leads the Coyotes

7. Phoenix Coyotes (34-25-10): The league owns this team and you can bet the folks at the head office in New York want the Desert Dogs in the post-season. Who knows, if they play well, maybe somebody will buy them. Right now, the Coyotes are in the driver’s seat. They have 78 points and lead ninth-place San Jose by three, although the Sharks have two games in hand. Phoenix plays seven of its final 13 games on the road down the stretch, but they are 16-13-5 on the road this season so they are well-positioned for a tough finishing schedule. They beat San Jose 3-0 on Saturday night, et Nashville at home tonight and then head off for four on the road starting on Wednesday night. The Coyotes are a plus-team that doesn’t give up a lot of goals. 8/1 to make it.

8. Calgary Flames (31-25-12): Alex Tanguay said it best, “Our best guys have to be our best guys.” The Flames certainly have a chance, but they have to keep winning. Iginla was great on Sunday night and if he gets hot down the stretch, that will help in a big way. Calgary has won three straight games and are 4-3-3 in their last 10, but they still don’t score enough (173) and they don’t stop it enough (191) and as a result they have the worst plus-minus differential (minus-18) of all the teams remaining in the race. They are 14-15-7 on the road this season so it’s a benefit that they play eight of they’re final 13 at home. 10/1 to make it.

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Jonathan Quick

9. Los Angeles Kings (32-25-12): The lowest scoring team in the NHL, the Kings are also third best in goals against. This team has scored only 153 goals this season, but they’ve allowed only 152, right behind St. Louis (135) and the Rangers (148). The Kings have two great goaltenders in Jonathan Quick and Jonathan Bernier, but they still haven’t found a way to score – even with the acquisition of Jeff Carter at the trade deadline. The Kings have 13 games remaining – seven at home and six on the road. At 15-12-8 on the road, they know how to grab at least one point. After all, they’ve played in 21 extra time games this season and won only nine of them. They picked up their ninth extra-time win, 3-2 in a shootout, in Chicago on Sunday night. L.A. finishes the season with back-to-back, home-and-home games against San Jose. That could determine their finish. 20/1 to make it.

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Joe Thornton Leans on Colorado's Paul Stastny

10. Colorado Avalanche (36-30-4): It’s a tough finishing schedule for the talented young Avs. With only 12 games remaining, the Avs play seven games on the road, but they are 16-15-3 on the road this season so it’s not like they don’t have a chance away from the Pepsi Centre. The key down the stretch for Colirado will be the goaltending tandem of Semyon Varlamov and J.S. Giguere. Are they good enough? Considering that from March 20-30, they get a stretch of Flames, Coyotes, Canucks, Sharks, Canucks and Flames, they are the masters of their own destiny. 20/1 to make it.

11. San Jose Sharks (33-25-9): The Sharks have 15 games left and that will make a difference. They have at least one game in hand on every other team and as many as three games in hand over Colorado. Based on history, they need 17 of a possible 30 points down the stretch to get a playoff spot. That should be a cake walk. Trouble is, they are in a horrible slump. They have lost four straight games (two via shootouts) and picked up only two of a possible eight points during that stretch. 10/1 to make it.

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Jets Must Get Six Points At Home This Week

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment
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Claude Noel

The Winnipeg Jets will play three straight games at home this week. They must win all three.

They open up Wednesday against a pretty good Dallas Stars team, play a huge four-point game against the Washington Capitals  on Friday night and then finish it up with a game next Sunday, the 18th, against the 13th-place Carolina Hurricanes.

Based on how things look today (Sunday, March 11), the Jets will need to win all three if they expect to be playing after April 7. It’s not an impossible task, especially with that huge seventh-man behind them at MTS Centre, but it will be a test. Dallas is no pushover and Washington is playing better hockey these days.

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Jets lose to Calgary

The problem of course, is that the Jets have just come off a terrible western road swing. They needed a split and they got bupkis. A tough 3-2 loss at Vancouver last Thursday and then a 5-3 loss in Calgary on Friday was hugely disappointing for everyone in Winnipeg, but in fairness, the loss to Calgary did result in one of the great responses to any reporter’s question in hockey history.

After the loss on Friday night, Jets coach Claude Noel was asked how disappointed he was about losing two straight games on the road. (Yes, I know, it’s a dumb question, but it’s asked more often than you might think.)

Noel responded to the Calgary Herald with this gem: “How would you like me to answer that? Do you want me to say medium, large? How would you like me to say that? How disappointed are you? Is there a level there? Is it a 10 out of 10? Would you like to say six out of 10? I mean how disappointed do you need to be?”

Dumb questions deserve dumb answers. The trouble with that answer is that it was absolutely brilliant. How do you feel? How disappointed are you? On a scale of 1-10? Those are questions asked by reporters who really didn’t have any idea what they were watching.

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Jets will need to win without Chris Thorburn.

The fact is, Noel was extremely disappointed. After all, those two road losses put the Jets behind the eight-ball. Heading into Sunday night’s slate of 11 NHL games, the Jets are in ninth place, deadlocked with the Buffalo Sabres at 32-29-8 (72 points). They are two points behind eighth-place Washington (the Caps have a game in hand) and they are now third in the Southeast Division, three points back of first-place Florida, two back of second-place Washington and the Panthers have two games in hand.

If Florida beats Carolina at home on Sunday night and Washington beats Toronto (both teams should win), the Jets will need all three victories this week just to keep pace.

Considering Winnipeg, which is now  11-19-4 on the road this season, will play seven of their last 10 on the road after this three-game homestand, three victories are almost imperative. And they will have to do it without hard-checking Chris Thorburn.

History says the Jets need 92 points to make the playoffs. If they add six points this week, they’ll need 14 out of a possible 20 with seven games on the road down the stretch.

It’s not going to be easy.

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Here is The Jets Road to the Playoffs.

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Scott Taylor| 2 Comments

The Jets don’t need a miracle, they just need five great weeks.

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Ondrej Pavelec

WINNIPEG – In a city that has gone absolutely crazy over the return of the National Hockey League, Winnipeg Jets fans are now of the mind that they might have to purchase playoff tickets.

OK, to be fair, there is a while to go yet. The Jets have 14 games remaining and eight of them are on the road. However, at 32-28-8 after Thursday night’s 3-2 loss in Vancouver, the Jets are solidly in eighth place in the East and have a legitimate shot at playing in late April.

We are now just 14-16 games shy of the 2012 post-season and the contenders and pretenders still haven’t been separated. OK, OK, after the Leafs blew a 2-0 lead in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night and fell 3-2 to the Penguins, it looks like they’re done.

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Randy Carlyle

What started out as a promising week for the Leafs, after that 3-1 victory at Montreal last Saturday, has turned into a nightmare. A 5-4 loss to Boston at home, a 3-2 loss in Pittsburgh and Joffrey Lupul’s separated shoulder has put a damper on the firing of Ron Wilson and the hiring of Randy Carlyle. The Leafs now need a miracle … along with two more front-line defensemen and a No. 1 goaltender.

However, besides the Jets, there are three other teams in the playoff hunt in the East – Washington, Buffalo and Tampa.

Here’s what’s happened this week: With Washington’s win on Thursday night, the Jets and Capitals are tied for eighth-place in points, but Washington has more wins and has played one less game so the Caps have a hold on eighth place. Buffalo is now two points back of the Jets and Capitals while Tampa trails by three.

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Philly shut out Florida 5-0.

Meanwhile, The Jets remain two points back of Florida in the race for first in the Southeast Division, but even though Florida was massacred 5-0 by Philadelphia on Thursday night, the Panthers still have two games in hand.

So what are the chances of any of these teams making the playoffs? Well, let’s go to Vegas.

Oddsmakers in Vegas don’t think about hockey very often, but they do occasionally think about the odds of teams winning the Stanley Cup. The last time those odds were set, here’s what they looked like for the four teams in the race for that final playoff spot in the East: Washington 20/1, Winnipeg was 60/1 (tied with Montreal, Phoenix, Dallas and Toronto), Buffalo was 75/1 and Tampa was 75/1.

I don’t say this very often about my friends in Las Vegas, but that’s a crock.

Not one of these teams should be as high as 20/1. In fact, I would expect Tampa to be 100/1 by now.

However, I’m not going to sit here and suggest the Jets have the best chance. In fact, I’m willing to take a very close look at what the Jets have left this season and concede that unless they figure out a way to start winning on the road, they don’t have a hope.

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Claude Noel

Jets coach Claude Noel, who should be considered in the Adams Trophy voting as coach of the year, said this after the Jets beat Buffalo 3-1 this week: “We have to take this confidence level and take the will that we played with at home and do the job on the road,” Noel said. ” You have to feel pretty good about where our team’s at and if we play with the same passion and energy — we don’t have the fans with us, but we know they’ll be cheering us from here — we’ve got a chance.”

Based on what happened in Vancouver Thursday night (Winnipeg was outshot 45-32), the Jets have big trouble ahead. But in order to get a handle on where all of these teams in the Eastern race will finish, you must look at everyone’s schedule and what they’ve done at home and on the road this season (BTW: It’s expected that any team in the playoffs will have to garner at least 90 points). It will also help you determine which players you should get ready to select in the playoffs.

3. Florida Panthers (31-23-12): The Panthers are first in the Southeast Division and therefore third in the East, but they aren’t guaranteed a spot in the post-season either. They are only two points ahead of Winnipeg and Washington in the Southeast although they have a game in hand with the Caps and two in hand on the Jets. The Panthers have 16 games remaining, eight at home against Carolina, Toronto, Boston, Buffalo, Edmonton, the Islanders, Winnipeg and Carolina again. That’s seven of eight at home against teams below them in the standings. 5/1 to make it.

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Alexander Ovechkin

8. Washington Capitals (33-28-6): I get asked the same question everywhere I go and I have to answer the same way. When someone asks, “What’s wrong with Alex Ovechkin?” my response is always the same, “I have no clue.” Now, to be fair, someone lit a fire under Ovechkin in overtime on Thursday night as the Caps beat Tampa 3-2 on Ovi’s winner. It was his 27th goal of the year in a season in which scoring is down everywhere except in Steven Stamkos’ world. Washington is 7-9-2 since the first of February and yet they’re still eighth (by wins and games played) and they’ll finish the season with only seven of 15 games at home. Considering they are a lousy 11-18-3 on the road, the Caps are no guarantee to make the playoffs. Unless, of course, Alexander the Great decides to do it himself. 15/1 to make it.

9. Winnipeg Jets (32-28-8): After 68 games, the Jets are 21-10-4 at home and 11-18-4 on the road. You can see the difference in this team’s home and road records by looking at goaltender Ondrej Pavelec’s splits. At home, Pavelec is 17-9-3 with three shutouts, a goals against average of 2.25 and a save percentage of .925. On the road, he’s 8-13-4 with one shutout, a goals against average of 3.31 and a save percentage of .899. In Winnipeg, it’s all about goaltending and this goalie (or backup Chris Mason) has to play eight of his final 14 games away from MTS Centre. Interestingly, the Jets play three games at home this coming week and then play seven of their last 10 on the road. 15/1 to make it.

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Ryan Miller

10. Buffalo Sabres (31-29-8): The Sabres made a good run to get back into the race thanks to the brilliance of Ryan Miler, but they play eight of their final 14 on the road. Now, to be fair, the Sabres are a respectable 14-18-1 on the road this season, but it’s obvious that because none of these teams from 8-11 have been .500 on the road this season there is no reason to believe they’ll suddenly get it figured out. The Sabres are 18-5-3 since the first of February, but have lost two of their last three. Any run to the playoffs will start with the goaltender. 25/1 to make it

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Steven Stamkos

11. Tampa Bay Lightning (31-29-7): The Lightning have a very nice schedule to finish the season. After all, starting Saturday night this week, the Lightning play seven straight at home and the Lightning are 20-10-2 at the Tampa Bay Times Forum this season. However, they’d better make some hay during that stretch because they play only two of their final eight at home and finish the season at Montreal, at Toronto and at Winnipeg and the Lightning are a dreadful 11-19-5 on the road this season. That final game on April 7 at the MTS Centre could be for eighth-place in the East. Of course, by then, Steven Stamkos will be chasing down 60 goals so it might have even more drama. 20/1 to make it.

(On Monday, we’ll check out the Western Conference.)

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Homestand Over, Jets Get Job Done.

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Andrew Ladd scores the opening goal.

The Winnipeg Jets got the job done. Now the playoffs look more like a legitimate goal.

Monday night at MTS Centre, Blake Wheeler and Chris Thorburn scored beautiful third-period goals as the Jets beat the visiting Buffalo Sabres 3-1.

With the win, the Jets improved to 32-27-8 and with 72 points are solidly in eighth place in the National Hockey League’s Eastern Conference.  They now trail the Florida Panthers by two points in the race for first in the Southeast Division, but the Panthers have two games in hand.

There is no doubt the Jets did exactly what they had to do during the just-completed eight-game homestand. Winnipeg went 5-1-2 in that stretch and gave themselves a legitimate opportunity to make the playoffs.

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Ondrej Pavelec got the job done.

Tuesday night, however, will be telling. Carolina is at Washington, Ottawa plays at Tampa Bay and Boston plays at Toronto. That means the three other teams (beside Buffalo) that are chasing the Jets get a chance to stay in the hunt or remain three, four and five points behind. All three teams have two games in hand and like the Jets, all three teams have to win every time they step onto the ice.

However, reality also sets in for the Jets. Winnipeg plays nine of their final 15 games on the road. The Jets are 11-17-4 on the road this season. That’s not good. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t pick it up.

The Jets get two tough road games later this week. They go to Vancouver on Thursday and then back to Calgary on Friday. At this stage of the season they need wins, no matter what the situation but those wins won’t come easy this week.

Still, after Monday night’s game, it was time for Jets head coach Claude Noel to celebrate a great team effort.

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Claude Noel. His team "played with the will to win."

“I thought the game had tremendous pace,” said Noel. “I like the fact we didn’t get demoralized after giving up a goal with 35 seconds left in the second period and our guys played with a lot of will. They did a good job of leaving everything on the ice. They played with a lot of passion. And if we keep playing with that type of will and passion, we’ll be OK.

“It was a fast-paced game and both teams played with a lot of will. We didn’t do anything special against (Ryan) Miller. We just tried to get pucks to the net. I thought both goalies were good.”

Now comes the final 15 games with nine on the road.

“We have to take this confidence level and take the will that we played with at home and do the job on the road,” Noel said. ” You have to feel pretty good about where our team’s at and if we play with the same passion and energy — we don’t have the fans with us, but we know they’ll be cheering us from here — we’ve got a chance. It’s fun when you win. Winning’s more fun than losing.”

Indeed.

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Did the Right Guy Get the Axe in Toronto?

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Leafs coach Carlyle

It was suggested by a couple of savvy members of the Toronto media that former Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson, “lost the room.”

A lot of other savvy insiders agreed with that assessment.

But I have one question: “When you’ve been in one place for 4 ½ years and you’ve never made the playoffs, did you ever HAVE the room?”

Or was the room just too lousy to make the playoffs no matter who was coaching them? Did Ron Wilson do a rotten job as head coach for 4 1/2 years or did general manager Brian Burke do an even lousier job signing decent hockey players?

The Leafs haven’t made the playoffs since the year before the lockout (2003-04). In fact, the Leafs have never been better than third in their division since 2004-05.

So when Wilson was fired last week, nobody even shrugged. Some people thought the general manager should have been sacked, but that comes next. Obviously, when you fire your buddy, somebody gave you the ultimatum, “Fire him or we’ll fire you.”

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Brian Burke

Fortunately, for Brian Burke — to date the most over-rated general manager in the game — he has plenty of buddies. He hired his old coach from Anaheim, the guy who was fired by the Ducks earlier in the year, Randy Carlyle.

Carlyle is a good coach and an interesting man. Hardworking and hardnosed, he played almost 10 seasons with the Winnipeg Jets and then got his start as a head coach with the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League. He had two stints over a 10-year period with the Moose and spent six full seasons behind the Manitoba bench.

He has a somewhat prickly exterior, but down deep, he’s a pretty exceptional person. We once disagreed over a couple of columns I wrote about the Jets wonky defensive unit in the late 80s, but shortly after a loud discussion, we agreed to raise money together at the Jets Wives Carnival by sitting in a pair of side-by-side dunk tanks, competing for funds. Our compromise was such a success, we did it for half a dozen years.

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Randy Carlyle With the Jets.

He was a very good player, a Norris Trophy winner and first all-star team member in 1981, he anchored the Jets defense through a decade of winning and losing seasons. He hated to lose, always played hard and was played more than 1000 NHL games.

In 1989, he was invited to represent Canada at the World Hockey Championships in Stockholm, but failed a drug test. In Canada, people were shocked. Those who knew Carlyle, knew that donuts, not drugs, were his weakness. One fan sitting in the corner of Winnipeg Arena, stood up one night and yelled, “Hey Carlyle, you have child-bearing hips!”

Amazingly, after recording a positive test on his A sample, Carlyle was cleared when his B sample came back negative. How did that happen? Everyone knows that the B sample is just the A sample spilt in two. It was another classic example of sport’s insane drug-testing witch-hunt gone terribly wrong.

Carlyle was a guy who had only one regret about his hockey career. He came along one generation too soon. He didn’t make the big money that most NHL players in the post-Wayne-Gretzky-to-Los Angeles generation made. Carlyle never got to be a million-dollar hockey player and he certainly should have been.

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Leafs take one of 44 shots at Carey Price.

When he left the game as a player, he never left the game. Carlyle went right into coaching and he’s become pretty good at it. Friday night, his old pal Burke asked him to save the 2011-12 season.

He had 18 games to (a), turn around a team that had just gone 1-9-1 and (b), to get a slumping team back into the playoff race. It was not an easy task, but it wasn’t impossible either. That’s why Burke picked Friday to jettison Wilson. For Carlyle, Game 1 was a good start.

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Mikhail Grabovsky Scores Twice

On Saturday night in Montreal, Mikhail Grabovsky scored a pair of third period goals as the Leafs outshot the last-place Canadiens 44-22 and outscored them 3-1. The Leafs seemed to respond to Carlyle’s leadership – at least for one game.

“I was a little nervous, a little butterflies, but I didn’t make too many mistakes, I thought,” Carlyle told the Canadian Press. “It’s different when you haven’t been behind a bench for three months and it’s a new team, but we got through it. The assistants did a great job.

“It’s obviously a nice way to start. I thought our team put out an effort. It’s impressive when you can go into the other team’s building and hold them to under 25 shots and score two big goals in the third to eke out a win. I asked them to skate and not worry about anything but what our focus was, which was to the game. We stayed with our game plan. We played hard, we got some breaks and our key guys scored some goals.”

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Great coach, but not a lot of time this season.

Carlyle does not have an easy job. The Leafs are only three points out of the final playoff spot in the East (30-28-7) and they do have one game in hand on the eighth-place Winnipeg Jets, a team that has a tough schedule down the stretch (nine of their final 16 games on the road), but the Leafs have to jump over ninth-place Washington, 10th-place — and red-hot — Tampa and 11th-place and suddenly successful Buffalo.

Carlyle’s task is not impossible, but it sure isn’t easy, either.

Then again, when has anything ever been easy for the Leafs?

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Jets Get it Done. Stay in the Hunt with 16 to Play.

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Bogo is Back.

The Winnipeg Jets did everything they needed to do on Thursday night.

They got off to a great start, hit the Florida Panthers at every turn, scored two early goals, got the crowd into the game and then exploded in the third to whip the Panthers 7-0 and move back into eighth place in the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League.

“We managed the game well,” said Jets head coach Claude Noel. “It was a playoff style game. We got some timely goals early. They (Florida) made some changes in the second period and got a lot of shots, but our goaltending was good.  In the third we opened up, but I’m not going to spend a lot of time making an issue out of seven goals. We played well. It was an important game for us.

“The fans got all fired up tonight and that’s always a good thing.”

It was an impressive victory in front of another impressive crowd and the most impressive players were the usual suspects: Evander Kane, Blake Wheeler, Zach Bogosian and Ondrej Pavelec.

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Evander Kane scores the game's first goal.

Kane had two goals and two assists. He has 26 goals this season. Wheeler, the second star, and Kyle Wellwood each had a goal and an assist while Pavelec made 33 saves, 17 in the second period, to get the shutout, his fourth shutout of the season. Bogosian returned to the lineup after missing seven games and played 22 1/2 minutes, had three blocked shots and three hits to go with an assist.

Mark Stuart, by the way, was a very impressive plus-four with four blocked shots in just 13 minutes of action. Of course, he also had a double roughing penalty and a misconduct.

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Ondrej Pavelec gets the shutout.

“Winning is fun,” Pavelec said with a smile after the game. “Brian Little scored a nice goal on a 5-on-1. That’s something I don’t think I’ve ever seen. That’s a big mistake on them. It was like in practice. I’ve seen a 5-on-1 in practice, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in a game. It was a nice goal.

“We knew we didn’t play well against Edmonton (a 5-3 loss on Monday). But we also know that we can’t waste our time letting the highs get too high and the lows get too low. We knew this was a big game for us. We didn’t make mistakes like we did before against Edmonton. This was a big win.”

Indeed.

With the win on Thursday, the 31-27-8 Jets leapfrogged the Washington Capitals and now lead the Caps by one point, although Washington has three games in hand. The Jets are still two points behind Florida in the race for first in the Southeast Division, but the Panthers also have three games in hand.

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Lots of goals and a big win.

Regardless, it was a terrific effort at exactly the right time. The Jets owe the teams they are battling with for the final playoff spot(s) a lot of games. Because of that, losing is no longer an option. The problem the Jets now face is that they play too many games on the road down the stretch. The Jets are 11-17-4 on the road this season (20-10-4 at home). In front of that raucous Winnipeg crowd, the Jets usually play well. On the road, however, they still haven’t figured it out. That must change.

The Jets have the weekend off. They’ll play again Monday night at MTS Centre against the Buffalo Sabres at 7 p.m. It’s the final game of the eight-game homestand. The Jets are 4-1-2 so far. That’s 10 of a possible 14 points. A win on Monday, and the homestand becomes a rousing success.

However, next week the Jets will head out onto the road for games Thursday in Vancouver and Friday in Calgary. The Jets play nine of their final 16 games on the road.

The real test starts now.

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With 17 Games Remaining, Jets on Verge of Biggest Game of the Season. Again.

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
135150807 extra large 300x200 With 17 Games Remaining, Jets on Verge of Biggest Game of the Season. Again.

Jets ready to give their fans a salute.

To suggest, even for a second, that one game out of 82 is somehow “bigger” than any of the others, seems strange.

After all, a National Hockey League team reaches different points in a six-month season and for all sorts of reasons, every game becomes an “important” game. A game in December against a team you’re chasing within the Conference or a game in February against an historical rival can both be considered  ”important” games.

However, with 17 games to play in the 2011-12 regular season, the Jets are coming up on a game that is more important than most of the games they’ve played this season. In fact, it’s so important, it would not have mattered if the Jets had actually beaten Edmonton on Monday night. Win or lose on Monday, the Thursday night game would still be incredibly important.

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Mike Santorelli leads the Panthers into Winnipeg.

Because no matter whether the Jets are two points back of Florida or four, they are still behind the Panthers and they’ve still played three more games and that means, quite obviously, that when the Panthers – the first place team in the Southeast Division — arrives in Winnipeg for the first game in March, well, yeah, it’s the most important game of the season.

The 30-27-8 Jets have 17 games remaining this season. They are in this mess because they’ve won only one of their last four and, as a result, this is where they stand: The Jets are now four points behind Florida in the race for first in the Southeast, but the Panthers still have three games in hand. The Jets are also in ninth place in the East, one point back of eighth-place Washington. Washington has two games in hand.

So the Jets play again Thursday night against the aforementioned Panthers in what really is, a gigantic game: 7:30 p.m. at MTS Centre.

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Zach Bogosian

Florida will play without its all-around best player, Kris Versteeg. He has a lower body injury. Zach Bogosian is expected back in the lineup for the Jets. This will be Game 7 of the Jets eight-game homestand. Time is running out.

After Thursday night’s game, the Jets will play nine games on the road and only seven at home. The Jets are 11-17-4 on the road this season. The numbers would suggest that they have to make the best of their games in front of that tremendous crowd at MTS Centre or the playoffs will not be a possibility.

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Claude Noel

“You can see that Florida has won three straight games and they have games in hand,” said Jets head coach Claude Noel on Wednesday. “They’ve jumped ahead and taken over the top spot in the division. We were there for awhile, but we had more games played. That’s just the way it is. We just have to stay focused on the task at hand.”

The task at hand is the biggest game of the year.

At least, until the next one.

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