The Jets play a pretty rough brand of hockey. They are big, they are physical, and for the most part this is a good thing. The problem comes when they go beyond the acceptable level of physical play and start taking penalties. Not all penalties are bad, but the undisciplined and overaggressive plays make coaches want to pull their hair out.
Winnipeg has become notorious for its penalties. Since the beginning of the 2014–15 season, they lead the league in shorthanded minutes (427) and have given up the second most power play goals (83). Their tendency to take penalties is compounded by the fact that they have a mediocre penalty kill. During this same stretch, they’ve been able to kill off only 80 percent of their penalties. This season has been noticeably worse, as that number falls to 75 percent. The only bright side to all these penalties is that the Jets lead the NHL in shorthanded goals with 15.
So who is to blame for these ugly numbers? According to the fans at the MTS Centre, it must be those pesky referees. Some of the loudest moments during Jets home games come from the “Ref, you suck” chants. Obviously, the calls don’t always go the Jets’ way, but I don’t think we can put all the blame on the refs. Is it the coaches? Maurice likes to play physical, but the players need to know when to rein it in and play smarter.
So if it’s on the players, who are the most at fault? As of this writing, the Jets have 7 players in the top 150 in penalty minutes per 60 minutes. Not surprisingly, Anthony Peluso and Chris Thorburn are the highest ranking Jets on this list. Most of these minutes come from fighting majors, but there’s certainly more than enough undisciplined minors in those totals too. The next 5 are Mark Stuart, Dustin Byfuglien, Jacob Trouba, Ben Chiarot, and Adam Lowry. A message was sent to Lowry recently as he was demoted to the Manitoba Moose after taking a bad penalty in a loss to St. Louis on December 15. It’s been a rough start to the year for Lowry, and hopefully his time in the AHL will get him back on track.
The penalty trend has been especially bad the past 2 seasons, but if we go back even further we see that Winnipeg has had a negative penalty minute differential every year since relocating from Atlanta.
The power play hasn’t been much better than the penalty kill this year. The Jets’ twenty-seventh-ranked power play has only scored on 15 percent of its opportunities. The average NHL team has a combined penalty kill and power play percentage of 100. Winnipeg’s is 92.5 percent, second worst in the NHL. The top teams are Boston (109.4 percent), St. Louis (108.2 percent) and Montreal (106.7 percent).
The Jets must find a way to stay out of the penalty box. They could learn a few lessons from some of their Central Division rivals as Chicago and Minnesota; each have over 100 fewer penalty kills since the start of last season. Bad habits can be hard to break, but the more time this team spends sitting in the “sin bin,” the less likely they are to make a playoff push.
