Winnipeg has cruised through the Stanley Cup contention checklist so far, with two top-line centers, Connor Hellebuyck, two elite wingers and Blake Wheeler’s resurgence to brag about. These are the core pieces that franchises dream of drafting. However, the middle six is where the Jets show their first signs of weakness.
Today, we’ll dig into those weaknesses and detail how Winnipeg’s quality season is worthy of deadline-day additions.
Two more top-six forwards for depth in the middle six
Cole Perfetti’s first full NHL season gives the Jets a passable “top-six forward playing middle six minutes.” Mason Appleton is injured but would be a clear miss, grading out as a depth forward as opposed to bonus middle-six quality. Even Adam Lowry’s projection falls short, despite providing quality defense and scoring at half a point per game. This isn’t an indictment of these players so much as a reminder that we’re comparing Winnipeg’s roster to Cup champions.
I’d also suggest that Perfetti’s youth and his small stature may make Winnipeg leery of trusting him as a clear hit the way the model does. As I wrote this weekend: “I think Winnipeg would love to add a winger who can offer middle-six quality plus grit and battle-tested experience: think Tampa Bay adding Blake Coleman in 2020. Timo Meier is the blue-sky target, but he’ll be expensive, both in terms of assets and re-signing cost.”
The Jets get half points here and I think they’ve identified this same area as needing improvement.
A second no. 1 defenseman to play behind him
Winnipeg’s clearest miss in this exercise is its lack of a second top defenseman. Colorado had Cale Makar and Devon Toews. Tampa Bay had Victor Hedman and Mikhail Sergachev. Winnipeg has Josh Morrissey and then Neal Pionk, whose shifts have corresponded to a disproportionate number of scoring chances against the Jets this season.
Pionk’s offensive production is still there, both in terms of his 21 points in 48 games and the scoring chances he helps create. He’s good at getting his wrist shot through from the point and is usually a good outlet passer. Still, he’s had a tough time in his own zone, both in the form of giveaways and in lost coverage, and sometimes I wonder if he’s playing at full health. A recent uptick in his performance doesn’t outweigh a season’s worth of scoring chances against and Pionk grades as a miss as the Jets’ No. 2.
A top-pairing defenseman to help anchor a strong second pair with the No. 2
Brenden Dillon is Winnipeg’s third most important defenseman, based on minutes and usage, and he doesn’t stack up to his Cup-winning competition. He grades out as a mild positive in terms of GSVA, scoring above average defensively but below average on offense — solid but not good enough to help Winnipeg stack up against the Avalanche, Lightning and other Cup winners of years past. Dylan DeMelo’s metrics are a little bit better than Dillon’s but DeMelo’s ice time consistently lands fourth among Jets defensemen despite lining up with Morrissey for most of his shifts.
Checklist summary
Winnipeg scores a 7.5 out of 10 on the Stanley Cup checklist, improving from last season’s 4.0 by an enormous amount. Hellebuyck, Morrissey, Nikolaj Ehlers, Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele and Pierre-Luc Dubois should offer tremendous confidence that Winnipeg’s core group of players are a strength, even when measured against recent champions.
Winnipeg’s weaknesses are in its middle-six forwards and on defense, where no one other than Morrissey comes close to first-pairing quality.
Here is the full list, with this season’s value thus far shown on the left and the model’s end-of-season value shown on the right.
Gold Checkmark: Exceeds expectations, above acceptable range from average Cup-winner
Black Checkmark: Right on target, in line with average Cup-winner
Gray Checkmark: Passable, below average relative to average Cup-winner
Red X: A hole in the lineup, below acceptable range from average Cup-winner
Any checkmark is good but black is better and gold is best. A fully gray list of checkmarks wouldn’t be bad, per se, but what you’re looking for is as many black and gold checkmarks as possible. For example, last year’s Avalanche had eight gold checkmarks in the “This Year” column and seven of them in the “Projected” column. Meanwhile, with a couple of clear misses on defense and in the middle-six forward group, Winnipeg’s profile looks more like a second- or third-round playoff team than a champion.
In any other year, I’d look at a team with this combination of strengths and weaknesses as a “strong playoff team” as opposed to being a true Cup contender. This season, though, Colorado is struggling to reassert its dominance and other preseason Western Conference favorites like Edmonton and Calgary are struggling. My thinking is that the Jets are in a group of teams — along with Dallas, Vegas, Colorado and maybe even Seattle — that could all lay realistic claim to a Western Conference banner.
With the field as weak compared to usual as it is, I have no problem calling the Jets a lowercase “c” contender.
Finally: You’ll notice that I gave the Jets full marks for Dubois but not Lowry even though the model projects both of them to slip a bit before the end of the season. Feel free to tweak Winnipeg’s score down to 7.0 if you think I’m being generous or up to 8.0 if you think I’m being unkind.
What does it all really mean?
If Winnipeg’s chart were littered with gold checkmarks like Colorado’s was last year, you might look at the team as a heavy favorite heading down the stretch. Instead, the Jets’ checklist implies a strong playoff team with clear holes.
What we feel the Jets should do about their success depends in part on interpretation. Throw out players’ recent seasons and assume that everyone having a career season will continue that career season into the playoffs? Then Winnipeg is probably a top defenseman — say, Jakob Chychrun — away from separating itself from the pack of teams chasing Boston for first in the NHL.
If you want insurance, however — and that’s what I’d be advocating for based on my interpretations in this piece — then it would begin to feel as though no price was too high for a high-end forward with grit like Meier. The Western Conference looks as wide open as I’ve ever seen it. Hellebuyck, Scheifele, Dubois and Wheeler might not be here forever and, with Morrissey, Ehlers and Connor playing spectacular hockey, this season looks like the Jets’ best shot for the foreseeable future. The most ambitious play would be adding up front and on defense to look more like a final-bound team (on paper, anyway) than a second-round also-ran. And that’s exactly what I would advocate for.
Note: All GSVA data collected prior to the conclusion of Sunday night’s games.
(Photo of Adam Lowry and Jakob Chychrun: Terrence Lee / USA Today)
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