The Winnipeg Jets heading to Texas to take on the Dallas Stars on Thursday, hoping to end their losing streak against their division rivals. A lot going on this morning (re: Hellebuyck), so this is going to be short & sweet.
Despite being heavily outshot, the True Northers had a chance to pull out a win but weren’t able to protect a 1 goal lead in the 3rd period. Stuart Skinner did his best to get a win, denying over 30 shots, but his efforts were only paid off with a loss in overtime.
POST-GAME INFO
Scoring Summary: (courtesy of ESPN)
FINAL SCORE: Dallas Stars 3 – Winnipeg Jets 2 (OT)
*****
Game Stats: (courtesy of MoneyPuck)
Expected Goals (all): DAL 4.32 – WPG 3.08
Expected Goals (5on5): DAL 2.45 – WPG 1.37
The Jets lost the xG battles in both situations listed above, which is hardly surprising when the Stars doubled them in shots. Yet, the expected offense wasn’t as lop-sided as that, Winnipeg still had to rely on a strong performance by their goalie to keep the score close. The True Northers allowed the 2nd most xG’s against they have this season, but also put up their 4th highest scoring looks.
The forwards were split between successful, Bjorck’s line had 47.7% of Winnipeg’s entire xG output at 5 on 5 and the Barron unit did well in limited minutes (not creating much, but not allowing it either – 0.084 to 0.011).
The Scheifele line lost the xG battle 0.322 to .673 to Dallas, the 5th time they’ve lost that fight this year and the Jets ended up losing 4 of those. While I thought Yager looked good, the Lowry line couldn’t create any offense at even strength (0.009 xG’s) and had a hard time limiting looks against (0.665 xG’s).
None of the defensive units ended up winning the xG battle, though Samberg–Pionk did there best in over 20 minutes of ice time against the Stars best players. Sammy had more than his fair share of mistakes against Dallas, but for the most part these didn’t come back to haunt his club. The 2nd pairing had a good outing versus St. Louis, but had real issues containing the Stars on Thursday (0.057-0.594 xG’s for DAL).
After a couple decent starts, Fleury had a rough one and as much as I like Bauer, he is probably too slow to be a regular starter on the 3rd pairing. Winnipeg desperately needs Morrissey & Salomonsson to return to the ice and hope that will seal up some of the leaks.
What can I say about Skinner? The Jets’ newest starter has had a fantastic start with the franchise, posting a 3-1-3 record & a .912 sv% on the season. 5 of 7 starts have ended with a positive GSAE rating and his +1.32 last night was his 2nd highest on the year. The guy his teammates call Skinny has looked cool & calm in net turned aside 35 shots on Thursday for a .921 sv%….clearly his club’s #1 star of the contest.
*****
Alright….news is saying that Winnipeg & New Jersey are very close to a Connor Hellebuyck trade…..so I am moving on from last night’s game without my thoughts. Maybe this prolonged stand off is about to come to an end??
UP NEXT: WINNIPEG JETS – SUNDAY, OCT 25TH @ 6:00 PM