Playoff run next year

[heilongjetsfan]

I'm pretty surprised at the pessimism here. Little and Scheif have emerged as a legit 1-2 punch down the middle. Wheeler had just under 1p/g, Ehlers has become a dangerous scorer faster than we should resonably expect. Kyle Connor should sign over the summer and will likely progress like Ehlers did. That's 5 bona fide top 6 guys. Petan, Dano, Armia, Lowry, Burmi, Perreault and Stafford are good middle-6 players. Copp has been more than competent in his role. Thorburn hasn't been a tire fire per se, and I really don't mind if he has a regular 4th line role, but he's the 13th guy I've named. Kossy, Tanev and Lemieux are call-up options and I'm SURE I'm forgetting someone.

Our defense doesn't have to be bad either.
Morrissey is an immediate improvement on Stuart. He might not be ready to play 2nd pairing, but he's less unready than Stu. Add in the fact that we can always go with Trouba/Myers for a few minutes a game to shelter him and I think our defense is top-15.

Whether or not goaltending is good next year seems to be entirely in the hands of management. Putting Pavs out to pasture by one method or another (buyout, bag of pucks, burying in the echl) would be a huge first step. Firing Vincent would almost make up for not getting rid of Pavs. Anyone else notice that Hutch and Helly both got worse the longer they were up with the Jets? Montoya too. Probably not a co-incidence.

As the icing on the cake we're picking no later than 9th.

As to what I'd do if the choice were mine, I'd put a number of our forward prospects, the Chicago pick, our 2017 1st and maybe some minor roster players (Burmi, Stafford, Perreault as examples) in play to make sure I got both my favourite forward and defenceman in this year's draft. Laine/PLD + Serg/Juo - no Chychrun, he's a Bustgosian.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I'm pretty surprised at the pessimism here. Little and Scheif have emerged as a legit 1-2 punch down the middle. Wheeler had just under 1p/g, Ehlers has become a dangerous scorer faster than we should resonably expect. Kyle Connor should sign over the summer and will likely progress like Ehlers did. That's 5 bona fide top 6 guys. Petan, Dano, Armia, Lowry, Burmi, Perreault and Stafford are good middle-6 players. Copp has been more than competent in his role. Thorburn hasn't been a tire fire per se, and I really don't mind if he has a regular 4th line role, but he's the 13th guy I've named. Kossy, Tanev and Lemieux are call-up options and I'm SURE I'm forgetting someone.

Our defense doesn't have to be bad either.
Morrissey is an immediate improvement on Stuart. He might not be ready to play 2nd pairing, but he's less unready than Stu. Add in the fact that we can always go with Trouba/Myers for a few minutes a game to shelter him and I think our defense is top-15.

Whether or not goaltending is good next year seems to be entirely in the hands of management. Putting Pavs out to pasture by one method or another (buyout, bag of pucks, burying in the echl) would be a huge first step. Firing Vincent would almost make up for not getting rid of Pavs. Anyone else notice that Hutch and Helly both got worse the longer they were up with the Jets? Montoya too. Probably not a co-incidence.

As the icing on the cake we're picking no later than 9th.

As to what I'd do if the choice were mine, I'd put a number of our forward prospects, the Chicago pick, our 2017 1st and maybe some minor roster players (Burmi, Stafford, Perreault as examples) in play to make sure I got both my favourite forward and defenceman in this year's draft. Laine/PLD + Serg/Juo - no Chychrun, he's a Bustgosian.

I agree with the first bold - and the 2nd. I have Thor as 13 AFTER trading Stafford.

Watt'a ya mean our D doesn't have to be bad? It isn't bad.

Use our top 4 as our top 4. That means Trouba stays on the left side. Morrissey and Postma are the 3rd pair. Chiarot is in the box and I read some post somewhere that said Stu was shot into the Sun so we don't have to worry about him anymore.

I think it is Flaherty you want to fire but I am OK with firing both.

I wouldn't mind your trade scenario but I don't think the evidence backs up your Bustgosian quip. Chychrun is not Bogo. Are we now going to forever shy away from big D-men? And Bogo may not be living up to his draft hype but he is not exactly a bust either. Although he is frequently busted. Your favourite forward is not Mathews? I would still be happy with 1 each from your pairs.

I think the play-offs next year are made somewhat unlikely just by the inexperience of our forwards as I project them. But, if Pav, Stu, Thor are disposed of all we would need is an improvement in our penalty numbers and a modest improvement in our ST's. They don't have to become strengths just better than this year's crap. That would give us a reasonable shot at a WC spot in spite of the inexperience.

 

[Puckatron 3000]

Even with 0 moves in the offseason, but with the right roster moves (as many here have already discussed), I give us 50/50 chance on making the playoffs next year. And increasing dramatically the year after.

 

[Guffman]

Some things to think about:

Power Play % (30th)
Power Play Goals (30th, 38 goals)
PP Opportunities (15th, 257 attempts)
Penalty Kill % (25th)
Power Play Goals Against (29th, 61 goals)
Times short handed (27th, 282 times)
Save %: (28th, 0.903)
Even Strength Goal Ratio (18th, 0.96)

Basically, our power play was atrocious, we were in the penalty box too much and also had an ineffective penalty kill and our goalies had a very weak save %. The Jets played with AHLers for a couple of months and eagerly took vets off on injury leave. We missed the playoffs by nine points.

I don't know how you fix special teams, but it can really just go up from here. Hoping Hellebuyck improves our goaltending (again, should go up from where we are at). I don't think we have to make any fundemental changes to the team. They can continue with the youth. It seems we're not far off from getting back with a healthy team. Hopefully, our special teams improve somehow.