I'm fine with dropping this. It is degenerating from rational discussion to argument but I did not say the bolded. Please don't put words in my mouth.
In a nutshell, we have won some games despite playing mostly bad hockey. Aavy is focusing on the games won while Mort is focusing on the mostly bad hockey. Both perspectives represent important things to keep in mind as we seek to make sense of this roller coaster start to the season, as well as what we're going to do about Maurice.
On the one hand, we have put up a few Ws. This, however, should only be taken as a sign that our team ultimately has a fair amount of legitimate talent. When you look back at our first six games, none of our successes (in Ws or Ls) have been the product of outstanding team play. Instead, it has been a series of individual efforts (like a solid string of saves by Helle, Armia's shorty, or a broken up cross-ice pass by Buff) or a bit of luck (like Little's goal off two missed passes by Laine and Ehlers). There certainly hasn't been a whole lot of talk like "our PP was really strong and put us ahead" or "our quick DZ breakouts limited the other team's OZ time". There hasn't been much time over the last 360 minutes of hockey where our team has been the best team on the ice, but there have been enough times where we have had the best player on the ice for us to bang out a few wins. This is good in that it points at what we all felt and knew going into the season: that we have the talent to at least make the playoffs. The bad news is that that same talent is apparently not being used well enough right now to get us there.
On the other hand, we have ample evidence that the Jets have been playing some bad hockey. Whether you want to dig into the possession charts, individual corsi, xGF/GA, or even dust off the blinkers and put the eye test to a few replays you'll see the same thing: the Jets being outplayed more than they outplayed others. The silver lining, of course, is that for many on the team this is a deviation from the norm. Wheeler CF% 49.8? If he stays this way all season, it'll be the first time he'll have sub 50% since his time in Boston. Even if you don't like fancy stats, you've probably felt that Wheels' game has been off and are likely optimistic that he'll return to form soon. But when? What exactly is it going to take? This clear and well-documented sub par play, both by the team and by individuals, is good in that we can clearly identify problems that have theoretical solutions. The bad news is that nothing seems to be changing, and several of our problems have carried over multiple seasons.
No matter how you look at it, though, the amount of excuses are running about as short as everyone's patience around here (or Sip's number of Grolsch beers in the fridge). It is really hard at this point to keep pointing at young players, or guys not playing a simple enough game, or systems execution, as reasons for our woes. Overall, there should be no question that Maurice needs to immediately change some coaching choices or we need to immediately change the coach.
He could immediately,
- Redistribute scoring more evenly over the top 3 (or 4) lines so that instead of trying to always have the best line match on the ice, you aim to always have the best player on the ice. Feel free to change the lines as players' effectiveness rises and falls, but you better be looking at that CF%rel more than who is giving the "best effort" (read: wasting all their energy in a short period of time).
- The PP and PK?... Put all your systems on a piece of paper, fold it twice, then set it on fire and throw it off the top of the MTS centre. If you come back with anything that has the word "passive" in it, repeat step 1. And for the love of everything holy, have more than one option for each crucial zone exit/entry so that you can make in-game adjustments.
- Quit riding "the hot hand" and start goalies based on QoC. Mason's first game back against Columbus?!? He should have started against Van imo while Helle could savour the high of beating the Oilers. If Mason could somehow have lost the Van game against all odds, give Helle Carolina and then pick the best goalie to play against Columbus who you know is going to be your biggest test to date. If we don't want Mason to play like he did in Philly, then we should at least avoid making choices like Philly did.
This is the one year, above all others, where it doesn't matter if we finish 9th or dead last... it's either in or out, and if we're out of the playoffs this experiment is over.