The Winnipeg Jets Are Too Old and Too Slow

The Jets, which feature 15 players and 13 skaters who are 30 plus, have struggled all season against younger, quicker teams both in preventing high-danger chances off the rush and creating them.

It became plainly evident almost a month ago, during the three-game California losing streak when things really started to go wrong, that high-octane whippersnappers such as Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, Beckett Sennecke, and Leo Carlsson could overwhelm the Jets with their speed and go through, around, or past the older guys to wherever they wanted to go (hint, hint: where they wanted to go was to the slot).

NHL EDGE stats measure speed bursts within or above certain mile-per-hour (MPH) ranges, and the numbers reveal just how slow the Jets are: They are ranked 31st in 18-20 MPH speed bursts, 31st in 20-22 MPH bursts, and 26th in 22-plus MPH bursts. Of the 29 22-plus MPH bursts they have team-wide, Morgan Barron alone has eight, and he missed six games due to injury.

Speed kills, and the only thing speed is killing right now is the Jets’ chances of winning. They are just 4-9-0 after their 9-3-0 start and out of the playoff picture.

Veteran Additions Making Jets Slower & Less Dangerous

General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff underwent a veteran experiment in free agency, adding forwards Gustav Nyquist, Tanner Pearson, and Jonathan Toews. While those players all have plenty of experience and good track records production wise, they are 36, 33, and 37 respectively and have only made a team that already features the slow Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn even slower (those five have one 22-plus MPH burst between them; Nyquist has the only one).

Thomas Hickey, on the Jets/Sabres Amazon Prime Monday Night Hockey broadcast, summed it up well, saying “the game is too fast for the Jets right now.”

Nyquist, Pearson, and Toews’ slowness is even more evident because they were brought in to compensate for the loss of Nikolaj Ehlers, one of the league’s most dynamic skaters who keeps opponents on their toes with his speed. They haven’t come close to replacing Ehlers’ presence, even in aggregate, with just combined six goals and many zero-impact nights.

Captain Adam Lowry held a closed-door, players-only meeting after the loss to the Sabres, but a pep talk or a dressing down can only do so much. Nothing he can say can change Cheveldayoff’s roster construction, which is looking more and more flawed as the season deepens and more and more out of step with the way a modern team needs to be built to succeed.

It might be time for some of the veterans to take a seat — remember, Toews’ lucrative bonus structure pays him more and more for every block of 10 games he plays, regardless of if he’s helping or hurting the team — and youngsters Nikita Chibrikov, Parker Ford, Brad Lambert, and Elias Salomonsson given longer looks in bigger roles. Something has to give; Connor Hellebuyck is not there to bail the team out and won’t be until after Christmas at the earliest.

The Jets are not truly as bad as they are playing right now, but they certainly won’t be a Presidents’-Trophy-winning team again. At 13-12-0 and sixth in the Central Division, just about the only thing they’re doing fast right now falling down the standings and into irrelevance.