It's interesting to look back at
my posts in the Positivity Thread, because it feels like it's coming to fruition.
In years past, when the Jets were winning, it was definitely
in spite of underlying metrics and mostly on the back of Hellebuyck. Last year, Hellebuyck didn't have a Vezina-calibre season - but more importantly,
the Jets were scoring much, much less than expected, despite the offensive talent they had.
Now for this season - although Hellebuyck
has certainly been outstanding - the only real blip to some numbers was
that disastrous road trip in October: they've otherwise been kinda decent, for lack of better words. And honestly, this is a good thing to reconcile: because they're doing this without Ehlers and a still somewhat lacklustre shooting percentage at 5v5!
I still have some points of concern, such as the top line's success mostly coming when not facing other teams' top lines, a lacklustre third "matchup" line against real tough competition, and a bottom six that mostly just gets by, and wondering if Morrissey's current streak of outscoring some lacklustre defence (ever so slightly!) will come down to Earth - but at least these Jets are staying accountable and honest with themselves and continuing to build good habits, instead of years past where these concerns were handwaved because internal metrics were better than external, or something like that (though this year
we see that public vs private isn't extremely different for the Jets).
In other words - I have cautious optimism that they're trending in the right direction. That being said, I still think this year and the next is the 'final hurrah' for this Jets core, and thus I also think it would be beneficial to make an acquisition sooner rather than later, and not waiting until the trade deadline. If Bowness is able to continue with the good vibes and build on the good habits when he has the roster/talent to deploy a more balanced offensive top 6 (or forward line up in general) with another RH/RW - along with Ehlers' eventual return - instead of merely treading water (again, for lack of better words), this team could be pretty good. Otherwise, I think we'll continue to see some high highs (i.e. right now's winning 7 of last 8) and low lows (that Oct road trip, the thumping that MIN gave us around Thanksgiving, etc.).
How great would it be for the locker room to see Chevy make a move to reward them for their success today, rather than waiting to see if it's "for real" by the deadline?
