Where the Jets have changed since the deadline and where's the opportunity to improve

[LowLefty]

On paper is basically where this discussion comes from. Maybe it shouldn't matter who plays with who. But looking at the results over time... the data is painting a very strong picture to say it does matter who plays with who.

We've been struggling to keep all of them in the lineup - and that's what they'll want to look at.
There are new players involved so it's not as simple as looking at stats - I'd like them to run a few combo's to see what clicks -
Not much time though.

 

[Buffdog]

Closed-minded people are everywhere in this guy's world.

The irony of someone calling me out for denigrating a poster and then you and @Atoyot talking about me like this isn't lost lol

And yes, the world is full of closed minded people. They hold society back, and always have

The smartest people in the room are the ones who can admit what they don't know and when they were wrong. They're also the most intellectually secure

 

[snowkiddin]

Vilardi and Ehlers were dynamite together. I'd be surprised if they were reunited when the team's healthy though.

Haven’t gotten a chance to see much of him unfortunately due to injuries, but Vilardi, in his limited time, seems like a player that fits well almost everywhere in the lineup. Versatile like a Matty P (different type of player of course).

I’m really excited about his future here if we can get him signed and he can stay healthy.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

Honestly, I think we're just going through a slump. Well, resting a bit before playoffs. I thinik either way we're bound.

 

[Jets]

If Vilardi is back, I think its time to try a top 9 plus the Lowry line as the matchup line.

Perfetti - Scheifele - Vilardi
Connor - Monahan - Toffoli
Iafallo - Namestnikov - Ehlers
Niederrieter - Lowry - Appleton

The key though will be giving the Namestnikov/Ehlers line at least 13-14 mins 5 on 5 though and balancing it out so every line plays around 14-16 minutes.

 

[WolfHouse]

This team lives and dies with scheifeles mood. I'm sure he had a direct line to Chipman - there's no way to explain connor on the top line... and the lazy second half every single year.

 

[jungles]

If Vilardi is back, I think its time to try a top 9 plus the Lowry line as the matchup line.

Perfetti - Scheifele - Vilardi
Connor - Monahan - Toffoli
Iafallo - Namestnikov - Ehlers
Niederrieter - Lowry - Appleton

The key though will be giving the Namestnikov/Ehlers line at least 13-14 mins 5 on 5 though and balancing it out so every line plays around 14-16 minutes.

Imagining Monahan trying to defend all by himself made me chuckle.

Maybe we would see some physicality from Connor for once, as he and Toffoli jostle for position in the slot.

 

[Flair Hay]

We've been struggling to keep all of them in the lineup - and that's what they'll want to look at.
There are new players involved so it's not as simple as looking at stats - I'd like them to run a few combo's to see what clicks -
Not much time though.

I wanted to sleep on this one and give it some thought. This is where it lead me...

Scheifele does better offensively and defensively with Ehlers than he does with Connor. This one is tough to debate, but not impossible.

Connor has better results when he plays away from Scheifele.

I agree some experimentation makes sense. I don't think trying out new things makes more sense than going back to what worked extremely well when we were one of the best teams in the NHL.

The issue is we are often willing to try new things with Ehlers all the time, but not with Connor. A lot of the data folks here are going off of is really hard to ignore

Ehlers Scheifele
Connor

All 3 players perform better historically in these slots than when Connor and Ehlers are swapped.

We arguably have a top 10 winger in the NHL we are using for 3rd line minutes.

I know the personalities and the day-to-day culture are considerations coaches need to factor in. When those start to drive the decision-making over growing results data it can hurt the team.

Willing to give a lot of leeway in decision-making as hockey is a very 55-45 sport between top line players and 4th line players. When you have a line that is potentially a 60-40 line instead of a sub-50 that's a huge gap by hockey standards.

Choosing not to pursue that is very questionable. What does it matter if we even find great new chemistry if we do not stick with it when we actually find it.

Sorry LowLefty this is not all for you just a word vomit from me to get off my chest haha!

 

[gojetsgo]

I wanted to sleep on this one and give it some thought. This is where it lead me...

Scheifele does better offensively and defensively with Ehlers than he does with Connor. This one is tough to debate, but not impossible.

Connor has better results when he plays away from Scheifele.

I agree some experimentation makes sense. I don't think trying out new things makes more sense than going back to what worked extremely well when we were one of the best teams in the NHL.

The issue is we are often willing to try new things with Ehlers all the time, but not with Connor. A lot of the data folks here are going off of is really hard to ignore

Ehlers Scheifele
Connor

All 3 players perform better historically in these slots than when Connor and Ehlers are swapped.

We arguably have a top 10 winger in the NHL we are using for 3rd line minutes.

I know the personalities and the day-to-day culture are considerations coaches need to factor in. When those start to drive the decision-making over growing results data it can hurt the team.

Willing to give a lot of leeway in decision-making as hockey is a very 55-45 sport between top line players and 4th line players. When you have a line that is potentially a 60-40 line instead of a sub-50 that's a huge gap by hockey standards.

Choosing not to pursue that is very questionable. What does it matter if we even find great new chemistry if we do not stick with it when we actually find it.

Sorry LowLefty this is not all for you just a word vomit from me to get off my chest haha!

kucherov, panarin, rantanen, nylander, forsberg, hyman, reinhart, marner, pastrnak, kaprizov, tkachuk, robertson, bratt, konecny, stone and then there are even more you can make arguments for, we don't have anyone close to being a top 10 winger on this team

 

[jetsfan15]

In the GDT a question was posed as to why the Jets have stumbled in the last ~2 months compared to their great record earlier in the season.

The Jets have had for the most part very stable lines that essentially divide the season in broad strokes in to 3 roughly equal parts:

1. Iafallo top line era
2. Ehlers top line era
3. Post All Star Break Era (Ehlers to 2nd line, Monahan now 2C instead of Vlad)

Lets look at the Jets goal differential during each of these periods. For this I will simply focus on plain goals for/against without invoking any fancy stats as they rub some the wrong way.


Iafallo top line era: This essentially lasts from game 5 till the Nov 29th consisting of 17 games. The Jets record during this period:

Points %: 0.706

	GF	GA	G+/-
Special Teams	12	13	-1
5v5	36	24	+12
Top line	9	11	-2
2nd line	13	5	+8
3rd line	12	5	+7
4th line	2	2	+0

During this period the Jets are +12 at 5v5 while enjoying some great goaltending. Their top line is mediocre whereas the 2nd and 3rd lines are driving most of their impact. It is to be noted that the during this period the 2nd and 3rd lines are riding a 105 PDO indicating their results may not sustainable, you certainly don't expect Lowry line to keep up that sh%.. If you care, the expected goal % for the Jets is 48.77.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ehlers top line era: On Nov 30th Rick Bowness makes a change demoting Iafallo and promoting Ehlers to the top line. This more or less lasts until January 11th when Scheifele is hurt and Connor comes back in the next 2 games. This period consists of 19 games


Points %: 0.842

	GF	GA	G+/-
Special Teams	9	11	-2
5v5	49	20	+29
Top line	20	5	+15
2nd line	13	4	+9
3rd line	7	6	+1
4th line	9	3	+6

Jets best stretch of the season, special teams stay mediocre, the 3rd line cools down as you would expect but now the top line with Ehlers on it is driving elite impact with some good contributions from the 4th line. If you care, the expected goal % for the Jets is 54.29 right up there with the best in the league.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post All Star Break Era (Ehlers to 2nd line, Monahan now 2C instead of Vlad): Coming back from All Star Break, 2 big changes are made to the Jets setup, Ehlers gets moved to the 2nd line with Connor taking his spot on the top line and Monahan taking over 2nd line duties with Vlad down to the 4th line. Jets play 24 games during this period.


Points %: 0.583

	GF	GA	G+/-
Special Teams	15	17	-2
5v5	46	42	+4
Top line	16	17	-1
2nd line	13	8	+5
3rd line	10	6	+4
4th line	8	9	-1

This is where the 5v5 numbers decline. Special teams continue to be mediocre. Top line which was driving elite impact in the previous period is now back under water. 2nd and 3rd lines continue to hold their head above water. One important note here is that while the 2nd line here is a + line, this line now has Ehlers on it, in Nov/Dec, it was delivering a positive and slightly better impact with Perfetti/Names/Iafallo freeing up Ehlers to help the top line. If you care the Jets exepected goals% is 51.08 primarily driven by the Lowry line and the 2nd line.


Conclusions:

So what are the conclusions? Nothing here is unexpected and pretty much tracks what we have been talking about on this board. Jets special teams are ordinary at every point with their best hope being breaking even, the Jets cannot rely on special teams to win games. To win games they have get their 5v5 play back to where it was... 3rd line is playing well and is pretty much maxed out, their production in this post-ASB period is what you can expect from them, 2nd line is OK, not as great as it was in the Vlad/Perfetti/Iafallo but still has held its own.

Where there is the most room for improvement is the top line. The Jets are so 5v5 dependent due to their subpar special teams that they simply cannot hope to contend with their top line being a -1 line at 5v5 as it has been since the ASB. Their underlying numbers are much worse and they could easily have a much worse differential. On the other hand even if they were a decent top line going at +5, if you keep the numbers of the other lines the same, that alone is the difference between a record of a team that is around 4th-5th in 5v5 goal differential to one that is 12-13th in the league... essentially the difference between fighting for the top of the division to being on the cusp of being a wildcard team.

Where this season goes is on the shoulders of the top line. The number 1 priority has to be to get them going to provide a positive impact at whatever the cost. Ehlers-Scheifele combo is the only one that has provided this unit with a positive impact but nothing can be off the table as this is the Jets biggest opportunity to make gains. It is almost to a point that they need to prioritize fixing that top line and then using whatever spare parts are left over for their 2nd line.

(I had posted a version of this yesterday but thought there was a mistake in it so I deleted it in case you think you are getting dejavu :p )

This is very informative. Good work. I wish there was a way to send this to Bones for him to read it lol.

 

[jetsfan15]

Don't get me wrong ... I'm not bashing the numbers but a lot more has to be taken into account.
The schedule is very important like a loaded or light schedule are they good/bad teams do those teams had major injuries, do the Jets have injuries and of course the refs ... are they calling everything or are they letting them play?
Too many variables so I always go with the coaches decisions since they have the inside track.
Use the Kings for example their last 17 games of the season they only play 4 top teams they never played the Hawks until March 15 so they have 3 games with them ... oh look the Kings are 7-3 and have good stats and they only play 14 games in March.
How about Tampa only 11 games in March and they are 7-1-1 ... rest at this time of year is much needed so yes schedule makes a big difference on team stats.

On the topic of busy schedules and coaching decisions relating to that, I am concerned with the way the coaching staff has managed Helly’s workload recently. Helly is our most important asset and will have the biggest impact on games for us. We have perhaps the best backup goalie in addition to the best starter. Pulling helly midway through the islander game after taking more than 20 shots and then proceeding to start him again less than 24 hours later in Washington and then again starting him against the oilers. We have to manage this in the final 10 games in a way that ensures he’s ready for the marathon of a playoff run (assuming that’s what ends up transpiring). The amount of games he’s played recently (and frankly the amount of shots he’s taking is very high - see ranger game, see oiler game) in a short timeframe is wild. A tired helly going into the playoffs would be a disaster given where our strengths and weaknesses are.

 

[Gm0ney]

kucherov, panarin, rantanen, nylander, forsberg, hyman, reinhart, marner, pastrnak, kaprizov, tkachuk, robertson, bratt, konecny, stone and then there are even more you can make arguments for, we don't have anyone close to being a top 10 winger on this team

Here's an argument:

Kucherov, Pastrnak, Panarin, Marner, Domi, Guentzel and Hyman are the only wingers with a higher individual points/60 than Ehlers this season...so 8th in the NHL.

Want a bigger sample? Last 3 seasons combined: Marner, Pastrnak, Matthew Tkachuk, Kucherov, Robertson, Skinner, Forsberg, Ehlers. 8th again. Hmmm...

 

[Flair Hay]

kucherov, panarin, rantanen, nylander, forsberg, hyman, reinhart, marner, pastrnak, kaprizov, tkachuk, robertson, bratt, konecny, stone and then there are even more you can make arguments for, we don't have anyone close to being a top 10 winger on this team

If that is the piece that gets nit picked from the essay I out put on my lunch break I'm calling it a win lol

 

[Buffdog]

I wanted to sleep on this one and give it some thought. This is where it lead me...

Scheifele does better offensively and defensively with Ehlers than he does with Connor. This one is tough to debate, but not impossible.

Connor has better results when he plays away from Scheifele.

I agree some experimentation makes sense. I don't think trying out new things makes more sense than going back to what worked extremely well when we were one of the best teams in the NHL.

The issue is we are often willing to try new things with Ehlers all the time, but not with Connor. A lot of the data folks here are going off of is really hard to ignore

Ehlers Scheifele
Connor

All 3 players perform better historically in these slots than when Connor and Ehlers are swapped.

We arguably have a top 10 winger in the NHL we are using for 3rd line minutes.

I know the personalities and the day-to-day culture are considerations coaches need to factor in. When those start to drive the decision-making over growing results data it can hurt the team.

Willing to give a lot of leeway in decision-making as hockey is a very 55-45 sport between top line players and 4th line players. When you have a line that is potentially a 60-40 line instead of a sub-50 that's a huge gap by hockey standards.

Choosing not to pursue that is very questionable. What does it matter if we even find great new chemistry if we do not stick with it when we actually find it.

Sorry LowLefty this is not all for you just a word vomit from me to get off my chest haha!

I'll nitpick something else for you lol...

The error people make is that it's a given that having the strongest first line possible gives your team the best chance to win. On the surface, it seems logical and highly probable that this would be true.

However, as has been pointed out in the past, the Jets have a losing record when Shief and Ehlers play together. For lots of people married to the idea in the above paragraph, "cognitive dissonance mode" kicked in as soon as they saw that. Instead of saying "that's interesting, maybe having them on different lines might be better for the team a whole after all", they tried to come up with reasons why that blip in the data exists

Further to that, if icing the best possible first line is the best way to win, then the Oilers would have McDrai cemented in stone. Marthews, Marner and Nylander would be a line. The Pens would have had Crosby and Malkin together always. Even the Hawks had Kane and Toews on separate lines

A top line spends about 14 minutes on the ice 5v5 in a game. Which means that over 75% of the game is played without them out there together. A second line get maybe 10-12 minutes. Combined, that's 24-26 minutes that the two lines play. Why not find combinations that maximize the effectiveness of both, even if it takes away the overall effectiveness of one in order to make the other one better?

 

[Flair Hay]

I'll nitpick something else for you lol...

The error people make is that it's a given that having the strongest first line possible gives your team the best chance to win. On the surface, it seems logical and highly probable that this would be true.

However, as has been pointed out in the past, the Jets have a losing record when Shief and Ehlers play together. For lots of people married to the idea in the above paragraph, "cognitive dissonance mode" kicked in as soon as they saw that. Instead of saying "that's interesting, maybe having them on different lines might be better for the team a whole after all", they tried to come up with reasons why that blip in the data exists

Further to that, if icing the best possible first line is the best way to win, then the Oilers would have McDrai cemented in stone. Marthews, Marner and Nylander would be a line. The Pens would have had Crosby and Malkin together always. Even the Hawks had Kane and Toews on separate lines

A top line spends about 14 minutes on the ice 5v5 in a game. Which means that over 75% of the game is played without them out there together. A second line get maybe 10-12 minutes. Combined, that's 24-26 minutes that the two lines play. Why not find combinations that maximize the effectiveness of both, even if it takes away the overall effectiveness of one in order to make the other one better?

It's not about having the best first line possible. It's about having the best lineup possible.

Your last question is part of many's frustrations. I touched on it a bit in my post. It doesn't take away from the 2nd line much at all when Ehlers isn't on it. The numbers have been pretty consistent all season, and to an extent past years. And Connor's time away from Scheifele he has better differentials as well.

Ehlers helps the first line statistically more than he hurts leaving the second.

Scheifele does better statistically with Ehlers than Connor by a pretty noticeable margin

Connor does better away from Scheifele than with him.

They are all small data points that add up. From what I've seen, as a big picture it paints to a pretty logical solution. It kind of kills two birds with one stone.

Maybe Connor-Monahan-Toffolli is not a great 2nd line and doesn't work. Maybe it will get tried soon?

We are lucky to have both, I'm just not sure we are playing our top 3 players to their strengths. I suspect we may be playing the top players to what they feel are their strengths. May be some "dissonance" in how our players see themselves, we are all human after all!

 

[Buffdog]

Connor does better away from Scheifele than with him.

He had good results with PLD, but this year the sample size is so small that that it's difficult to draw conclusions from. His 5v5 GF% is the same both with and without schief though. His xGF% depended on his linemates both with and without schief as well, but again the sample size is too small to draw a conclusion

In the past, Bones has had no problem playing Connor away from schief and with PLD. So why not this year? I feel like the answer to that is "he must have a reason, but we don't know what it is"

 

[JetsFan815]

kucherov, panarin, rantanen, nylander, forsberg, hyman, reinhart, marner, pastrnak, kaprizov, tkachuk, robertson, bratt, konecny, stone and then there are even more you can make arguments for, we don't have anyone close to being a top 10 winger on this team

Many of those guys do a large chunk of their damage on the PP. If we only consider even strength which I think is what @Flair Hay was getting at then Ehlers is definitely in the conversation of being a top-10 winger.

Now you can argue that delivering impact on the man advantage is a requirement to be in the conversation for being a top-10 winger and that might be true but there is certainly a pretty fair argument to be made for 27 being a top-10 winger based on his even strength impact.

 

[JetsFan815]

It's not about having the best first line possible. It's about having the best lineup possible.

Your last question is part of many's frustrations. I touched on it a bit in my post. It doesn't take away from the 2nd line much at all when Ehlers isn't on it. The numbers have been pretty consistent all season, and to an extent past years. And Connor's time away from Scheifele he has better differentials as well.

Ehlers helps the first line statistically more than he hurts leaving the second.

Scheifele does better statistically with Ehlers than Connor by a pretty noticeable margin

Connor does better away from Scheifele than with him.

They are all small data points that add up. From what I've seen, as a big picture it paints to a pretty logical solution. It kind of kills two birds with one stone.

Maybe Connor-Monahan-Toffolli is not a great 2nd line and doesn't work. Maybe it will get tried soon?

We are lucky to have both, I'm just not sure we are playing our top 3 players to their strengths. I suspect we may be playing the top players to what they feel are their strengths. May be some "dissonance" in how our players see themselves, we are all human after all!

Exactly. I personally don't care about what the first line looks like as long as the Jets are icing a lineup to maximize their chances. Some people think that our minds are made up and not open to changing. That is not true at all. For example, in the beginning of the season, I was more than happy to give Iafallo and then Vilardi a run on that top line, I defended that deployment saying if it works then that gives the Jets a much stronger top-9. But the reality is, both Iafallo and Vilardi failed to get that line to respectability just like Appleton and Wheeler failed with that (admittedly difficult) task in the past.

The 1st line thing gets so much focus because of two things that seem to be immutable in Bowness' eyes.

1. Scheifele-Connor must always play together
2. That line should be deployed like a top line in the NHL playing 16-17 mins a night at 5v5

If there was any kind of indication of any kind of flexibility on either of those 2 things there might be other options (eg Nino-Scheifele-Toffolli and Connor-Monahan-Ehlers type of setup). But if you are insistent on giving the Connor-Scheifele-X line 36-37% of the available icetime at 5v5, then the only logical thing left is to load up that line as that its the only way is gotten results to justify any type of positive results for such a large share of ice time.

Finally this has gone from a niche issue that only got coverage on HFBoards and Twitter to something national reporters like Eliotte Friedman and Dom Lusynshyn are commenting on, so it is not just a few posters on HF and twitter blowing it out of proportion.

 

[DannyGallivan]

In the GDT a question was posed as to why the Jets have stumbled in the last ~2 months compared to their great record earlier in the season.

The Jets have had for the most part very stable lines that essentially divide the season in broad strokes in to 3 roughly equal parts:

1. Iafallo top line era
2. Ehlers top line era
3. Post All Star Break Era (Ehlers to 2nd line, Monahan now 2C instead of Vlad)

Lets look at the Jets goal differential during each of these periods. For this I will simply focus on plain goals for/against without invoking any fancy stats as they rub some the wrong way.


Iafallo top line era: This essentially lasts from game 5 till the Nov 29th consisting of 17 games. The Jets record during this period:

Points %: 0.706

	GF	GA	G+/-
Special Teams	12	13	-1
5v5	36	24	+12
Top line	9	11	-2
2nd line	13	5	+8
3rd line	12	5	+7
4th line	2	2	+0

During this period the Jets are +12 at 5v5 while enjoying some great goaltending. Their top line is mediocre whereas the 2nd and 3rd lines are driving most of their impact. It is to be noted that the during this period the 2nd and 3rd lines are riding a 105 PDO indicating their results may not sustainable, you certainly don't expect Lowry line to keep up that sh%.. If you care, the expected goal % for the Jets is 48.77.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ehlers top line era: On Nov 30th Rick Bowness makes a change demoting Iafallo and promoting Ehlers to the top line. This more or less lasts until January 11th when Scheifele is hurt and Connor comes back in the next 2 games. This period consists of 19 games


Points %: 0.842

	GF	GA	G+/-
Special Teams	9	11	-2
5v5	49	20	+29
Top line	20	5	+15
2nd line	13	4	+9
3rd line	7	6	+1
4th line	9	3	+6

Jets best stretch of the season, special teams stay mediocre, the 3rd line cools down as you would expect but now the top line with Ehlers on it is driving elite impact with some good contributions from the 4th line. If you care, the expected goal % for the Jets is 54.29 right up there with the best in the league.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Post All Star Break Era (Ehlers to 2nd line, Monahan now 2C instead of Vlad): Coming back from All Star Break, 2 big changes are made to the Jets setup, Ehlers gets moved to the 2nd line with Connor taking his spot on the top line and Monahan taking over 2nd line duties with Vlad down to the 4th line. Jets play 24 games during this period.


Points %: 0.583

	GF	GA	G+/-
Special Teams	15	17	-2
5v5	46	42	+4
Top line	16	17	-1
2nd line	13	8	+5
3rd line	10	6	+4
4th line	8	9	-1

This is where the 5v5 numbers decline. Special teams continue to be mediocre. Top line which was driving elite impact in the previous period is now back under water. 2nd and 3rd lines continue to hold their head above water. One important note here is that while the 2nd line here is a + line, this line now has Ehlers on it, in Nov/Dec, it was delivering a positive and slightly better impact with Perfetti/Names/Iafallo freeing up Ehlers to help the top line. If you care the Jets exepected goals% is 51.08 primarily driven by the Lowry line and the 2nd line.


Conclusions:

So what are the conclusions? Nothing here is unexpected and pretty much tracks what we have been talking about on this board. Jets special teams are ordinary at every point with their best hope being breaking even, the Jets cannot rely on special teams to win games. To win games they have get their 5v5 play back to where it was... 3rd line is playing well and is pretty much maxed out, their production in this post-ASB period is what you can expect from them, 2nd line is OK, not as great as it was in the Vlad/Perfetti/Iafallo but still has held its own.

Where there is the most room for improvement is the top line. The Jets are so 5v5 dependent due to their subpar special teams that they simply cannot hope to contend with their top line being a -1 line at 5v5 as it has been since the ASB. Their underlying numbers are much worse and they could easily have a much worse differential. On the other hand even if they were a decent top line going at +5, if you keep the numbers of the other lines the same, that alone is the difference between a record of a team that is around 4th-5th in 5v5 goal differential to one that is 12-13th in the league... essentially the difference between fighting for the top of the division to being on the cusp of being a wildcard team.

Where this season goes is on the shoulders of the top line. The number 1 priority has to be to get them going to provide a positive impact at whatever the cost. Ehlers-Scheifele combo is the only one that has provided this unit with a positive impact but nothing can be off the table as this is the Jets biggest opportunity to make gains. It is almost to a point that they need to prioritize fixing that top line and then using whatever spare parts are left over for their 2nd line.

(I had posted a version of this yesterday but thought there was a mistake in it so I deleted it in case you think you are getting dejavu :p )

I will add, goaltending has stumbled when it has been a deciding factor in the past (put in Laurent more to give Helle additional rest); a Vilardi return “could” spark the pp; go back to meat and potatoes offense (Ehlers and Connor would rather make the sports deal highlight package than win games).