The Colorado Avalanche may have helped create a monster.
Colorado dominated the Winnipeg Jets in the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, torching one of the league’s best defensive teams and the pending Vezina Trophy winner with 28 goals in five games. It led to probing questions about everything for a club that had just finished with 110 points, tied for fourth-most in the NHL with the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
Winnipeg brought in a new coach. The Jets did not overhaul the roster, but the new regime has made some big changes. New boss Scott Arniel announced the day he was hired that the organization would hold an offseason analytics summit. The Athletic’s Murat Ates went in-depth on the topic, and you’ll quickly notice how often the Avalanche pops up.
What happened next? The Jets established a new NHL record by starting the season 15-1. They are currently 17-4, four points clear of everyone else in the league.
Of course, just investing more time and resources into analytics is not solely why the Jets are suddenly the pacesetters in the NHL. What’s happened on the ice?
The Jets are still the Jets when it comes to preventing goals, starting with Connor Hellebuyck, but now they’re scoring like an elite team as well. Winnipeg began Sunday tied for first in goals per game and first on the power play.
The top offensive players are all collecting about a quarter of a point more per game. Neal Pionk is up nearly half a point per contest as the No. 2 defensive option behind Josh Morrissey. The Jets lost Tyler Toffoli and Sean Monahan in the offseason, but Cole Perfetti is producing as a regular (after not being trusted by the previous coach in the playoffs), and depth guys like Adam Lowry, Nino Niederreiter and Vladislav Namestnikov are all chipping in more.
There is a “but” coming, and, maybe ironically, it deals with analytics. The Jets are actually worse this year at 5-on-5. Winnipeg led the league in goals for percentage and was 12th in expected goals for percentage during the regular season last year.
This season? Sixth in goals for percentage and way down at 21st in expected goals for percentage. How do they have the league’s best goal differential?
The Jets have scored six times on 12 shots with their goalie pulled. They are shooting nearly 24% on the power play, just ahead of Colorado in the league lead. And they’ve scored nine times into the other team’s empty net.
All the goals count, and winning teams get more cracks at an empty cage. But there is still more work to be done at even strength before everyone fully buys in.
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Still, the Jets being this dominant after the roster got worse, not better, on paper is a significant surprise. They lead our list of the top surprises. Check out the top disappointments so far here.
2. Alex the Great, again
Alex Ovechkin is already the greatest goal scorer in NHL history in the eyes of many because it’s been much harder to score them during his career than when Wayne Gretzky & Co. were putting up video game numbers in the 1980s. Still, Ovechkin’s pursuit of replacing Gretzky as the official all-time leader has been one of the best storylines of this season.
It’s on hold for a bit because of a broken fibula, but Ovechkin scoring 15 goals in 18 games and leading the NHL, even briefly, at 39 years old, is incredible. Not only was it the hottest start of Ovechkin’s storied career, but the Capitals were also blitzing the opposition when he was on the ice.
The Caps could be on this list as a team with how they’ve retooled the roster around Ovechkin and without core guys Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie. There’s still time for Ovechkin to return and continue this remarkable march to the scoring record and against Father Time.
3. That didn’t take long
Congrats to former DU coach Jim Montgomery for making both lists. The Bruins’ dismissal of Montgomery, who led Boston to the most wins and points in the NHL during his tenure, was our top disappointment.
He did not stay unemployed long. The Blues hired Montgomery on Sunday, five days later. That’s not the surprising part. Montgomery was likely to be a hot commodity.
The stunner is that St. Louis hired him. The Blues fired Drew Bannister … after just 22 games as the club’s full-time head coach. Bannister was named the interim boss last season and helped the team to a 30-19-5 record. The Blues removed the interim tag in May. Then they removed him when Montgomery became available.
4. It’s not always the size of the Wolf
Two things have been true about Dustin Wolf for his entire career. One, he has almost always been one of the best goalies in his league. Two, he is not tall — at least by NHL goalie standards.
Wolf was named the WHL goalie of the year twice. He was named the AHL goalie of the year twice. He is also listed at 6-foot-0 and was the No. 214 pick in his draft class.
Well, Wolf is 8-2-1 in 11 starts this season for the certainly surprising Calgary Flames. He has a .926 save percentage. He should firmly be in the Calder Trophy race, if not the leader at the moment.
But he’s still not tall. So like Nashville’s Juuse Saros and other diminutive netminders who came before, Wolf will need to prove over and over that he can play in the NHL while some towering goalies will get plenty of chances to prove they cannot.
5. A fun NHL website upgrade
The league launched NHL Edge data ahead of last season, a fun (although hopefully someday greatly expanded) window into the puck-tracking data that has been years in the making. There’s been another step forward this year: goal visualizations.
If you haven’t done it yet, check any game summary on the league’s website. Every goal now comes with a visual representation of where everyone was on the ice for several seconds before the goal, with an old-school video game feel.
It’s great. The league deserves credit for making them happen. Will the league ever let the public have access to more, or even all, of the tracking data to change how the sport is covered, discussed and maybe even played? Maybe.
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