I am going to continue this weird tradition of only doing long-ish articles for playoff previews. I was wrong last year, but that's only because everyone important-ish got injured like 2 seconds into the game. Here's hoping for some actual competitiveness this ye- oh boy, it's the Oilers.
Edmonton Oilers
FWD Lines Combos
Nugent-Hopkins-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Extras: Ennis, Turris, Kassian
DEF Pairings
Koekkoek-Bear (insufficient time together to generate map)
Extras: Jones, Russell, Bouchard
Winnipeg Jets
FWD Lines
Dubois-Stastny-Perreault OR Dubois-Stastny-Ehlers
Harkins-Thompson-Lewis OR Perreault-Thompson-Lewis
Extras: Vesalainen, Toninato
DEF Pairings
Morrissey-DeMelo OR Morrissey-Poolman
Stanley-Benn OR Benn-Poolman (insufficient) OR Stanley-Poolman
Extras: Heinola, Niku
Graphical Comparisons
Storylines
No Ehlers, No Offence
While the main focus for this season and the last has been the lack of talent on the blueline, Winnipeg has quietly been in the middle or bottom half of the league in terms of generating offence – as in, shots going towards the opposition’s net.
When Ehlers was last in the lineup on April 24th against the Leafs, the Jets offence was already struggling at 2.1 xGF/60 (-18%) according to HockeyViz, and looking at the actual shot map for it, we see a lot of shots coming from the top of the inner slot or at the blueline:
However, after Ehlers was injured, though the actual xGF/60 just dropped by 0.1, we see in the same shot map a considerable drop in shots in general, though some players were able to get to the front of the net and regain some of that loss in xGF.
In terms of pure numbers, in the 9GP after Ehlers’ injury, Jets were at a 47.91 CF/60 and 2.09 xGF/60 according to NaturalStatTrick, amongst the likes of Nashville, Detroit, Anaheim, etc. In the 9GP before the injury, those shot rates were at a 53.1 CF/60 and 1.93 xGF/60 – nearly a difference of 5 shots per game with or without Ehlers. Simply looking at the difference in the shot maps above and Ehlers’ own isolation, we can likely put two-and-two together and come to the conclusion that Jets are still struggling to get in front of the opposition’s goalie, and there’s rarely a chance to do so in the last few games considering no one is shooting the puck to generate any sort of rebounds.
To that end, Maurice has recognized this lack of offence and has yet again reassembled his “nuclear” option in bringing together the esteemed Connor-Scheifele-Wheeler line that was the offensive show in 2017-18, but was only 44.4% GF% in the 2018-19 season right after. They’ve seen limited time together since, with Maurice only using them in key moments in 2019-20, but have now seen larger stretches of time together in 2021 where although they have not been at the same mark a few years ago, may be able to replicate some of that magic if Wheeler is truly healthy, Scheifele is truly committed to defence, and Connor continues his scoring streak that he ended the season with.
Make no mistake – a healthy Ehlers gives the Jets a ton of more options on what to do offensively. Without him, the Jets have had to resort to stacking what some may consider their remaining top 3 offensive forwards together on one line, and hope that the second line can grind it out while the third line takes heavy matchup minutes.
Luckily enough for the Jets, the Oilers are essentially the same: McDavid and Draisaitl have a 21.6 and 18.8 Offensive GAR respectively, and then their next best players are Jesse Puljujarvi at 5.6 (who has been attached to the hip of either of those players) and then James Neal at 4.2. So, while Maurice likely focuses on how to shut down one or both of McDavid and Draisaitl, Dave Tippett’s focus is how to ensure the rest of his lineup doesn’t get outscored by the Jets’ depth. Without Ehlers, something tells me Tippett’s job will be a lot easier than Maurice’s.
The McDavid Problem
Speaking of McDavid, it is no secret that he is the brunt of the all the issues that Winnipeg faces (other teams notwithstanding). Here’s how the With-or-Without-You’s look with McDavid and Draisaitl vs the Jets this season (at 5v5, score and venue adjusted):
Simply put, if McDavid is on the ice, with or without Draisaitl, the Oilers have essentially scored at will. But in the ~180 minutes without either of them, the Jets have the advantage – although, only 2.64 goals per 60 minutes to show for it simply isn’t enough to outscore what McDavid can do on his own or with his occasional German linemate.
The McDavid problem is two-fold: first, which defensive pairing is best suited against him; and second, how much time can you give to the Lowry line to stop the bleeding? Thus far, we have not seen Morrissey and DeMelo together against EDM, only seeing Forbort-Pionk and Morrissey-Poolman. Unfortunately, neither of those pairings have been remotely close to stopping the bleeding that McDavid causes, with Pionk seeing an 82.83 CA/60 and a 4.00 xGA/60, and Morrissey seeing a 91.23 CA/60 and a 4.96 xGA/60 (Morrissey has the highest xGF/60 against McDavid at 1.65). DeMelo, in only 10 minutes against McDavid (with Logan Stanley), has seen the best results in the limited sample size at 47% CF% and 41% xGF% - the question becomes, will Maurice put 44 and 2 together for the playoffs to face McDavid for the first time?
Secondly, McDavid will see 35%+ of the available 5v5 ice time (basically, one period a game) and we can likely assume nearly half of those will be occupied by Adam Lowry – Lowry has the unique achievement of being the one of the two forwards that McDavid is sub-50% in CF% (the other being… Kyle Connor?), though Lowry’s xGF% against McDavid is still a rather low 44%. When the Jets go top vs top in terms of Scheifele vs McDavid, Winnipeg’s top centre has a below 40% CF% and xGF% with and without Blake Wheeler (well, 55 without 26 just barely gets by 40% xGF%). Though CF/60 hovers around the low 40s, Scheifele’s 2.44 xGF/60 against McDavid is actually above his season average of 2.27, though that had dropped to 2.21 xGF/60 when with Wheeler – so in other words, though the Jets haven’t controlled the puck as much, they still generated some ideal scoring opportunities. However, how much does that mean when McDavid is putting up ~4 actual goals and expected goals per 60 minutes against you?
If the Jets somehow manage to quell McDavid in probably one of the best individual seasons this league has ever season – even if it is only somewhat – is that enough for success from your depth?
Depth vs Depth
I'll drop a simple tweet for this, and I was meaning to go even more in-depth but unfortunately I do not have the time at the moment:
Simply put - without either team's top two offensive players, the teams stink. In terms of Evolving-Hockey, the drop from Draisaitl's team-second-best Off GAR of 19.1 to their third player, Puljujarvi, is a difference of 13.1 Goals Above Replacement. For the Jets, their top three offensive players of Ehlers, Connor, and Scheifele are respectively at 11.6, 8.2, and 7.3 - i.e., combining two of them barely gets you as good an output as Draisaitl.
For all the talk of the Jets depth needing to simply outmatch the Oilers depth - the difference over the series may likely just be 2-3 goals. McDavid or Draisaitl can do that any given game. So: if the EDM depth evens up or outscores WPG's, this series is done for. If WPG does outscore EDM's depth... it's still a toss-up.
Chief's Final Take
After being healthy nearly all-year, the Jets finally get into the playoffs with injury concerns to Ehlers, Dubois, and Stastny, among others. And whereas in previous years we would consider the playoffs "a different animal entirely", it's usually considering the fact that the teams have only faced each other 2-5 times with periods of time in-between those games - this year, thanks to COVID, we got to saw McDavid and the Oilers shred the Jets for 7 of 9 games.
After watching a few games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs thus far on the American teams, the one thought that continuously sprung to mind was: "Jeez - do any of the Canadian teams match up to the American ones?" (Again, according to Evolving-Hockey's G+/- Components, TOR comes up 4th whereas EDM and WPG are 10th and 14th respectively - so the answer is, at least the Leafs, maybe.) But that doesn't matter at the moment - what matters is, who will come out on top between the Oilers and the Jets?
Though Connor Hellebuyck is having another Vezina-calibre-ish season according to most models, Mike Smith is somehow not that far behind. And while the Jets depth may outmatch the Oilers' own, the difference between EDM's top players and WPG's this season might as well be as large as a valley or canyon. Hellebuyck may steal a game, and an Ehlers return in Game 3 or 4 (my personal expectation, not confirmed) may provide some energy for the Jets to pull off two wins in an otherwise close match-up, but not enough to make up the difference that McDavid and Draisaitl with otherwise create.
Lowry can only eat up so many minutes that Tippett will continuously throw his star player out there for, and Scheifele hasn't proven he can take on that matchup since the 2018 playoffs. That is why I believe the Oilers will win this series in 6 games, maybe even 5.
The Jets are preparing themselves as the obvious underdogs in this series, though it is closer than some think according to models - unless you believe that the 9 games vs EDM this season is a good enough showcase for how this series will turn out.
Enjoy the playoffs.
Good analysis, agree with your prediction!
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