 |
| Brandon Tanev scored two including the game winner Friday. |
Brandon Tanev couldn't wait to pot his first National Hockey League goal. Little did he and his teammates know that he would get two, including the game-winner with 7:36 remaining in the third period. Not bad for an undrafted player in his 15th NHL game.
In a game that twice had to goal to video review (one each favoring each club) and would have gone to a third until the "War Room" in Toronto goal horn sounded amid late third period action to signify that Tanev's second marker that he roofed over the shoulder of Wings goalie Petr Mrazek was indeed a good goal.
Laine scored to earn his seventh goal to lead all rookies. Ehlers got his third into an empty net and Mark Scheifele got his sixth goal and sixth assist to garner him 12 points on the year so far. Wheeler is under his annual projection, as he has only three goals thus far. Look for Wheeler to pad those stats tonight against the Rangers, although the Blueshirts are very dominant at MSG this season.
The Jets are starting to earn the moniker of "the comeback kids." While that may sound inspirational, it does, in fact, mean that the Jets have to come from behind...a lot. Being resilient and having a never-say-die attitude is great. It makes things exciting to know your team never gives up and is tenacious. This can be especially rewarding in the playoffs. But it also means you're chasing the game more often than not. The fact that the Jets have four starting rookies, including a goaltender seeing regular duties, may give the Jets a little latitude in their won-loss record; especially only 12 games in. But when the schedule passes 20 games or more, you have a pretty good indication of where your team is and where they're heading in regards to the season standings. Playing catch-up in the NHL in December is quite the assignment. Compound that with the Jets being in the toughest division in the league and you have a recipe for mediocrity at best. The Jets have had to play catch-up in at least five games already. Four of them thankfully turned out to be victories, save for the overtime loss on November 3 against the Washington Capitals.
Still, hope abounds. Patrik Laine, Kyle Connor, Nikolai Ehlers, Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler will excite Jets fans and they will light the lamp on some nights while others will be chalked up to growing pains of a young team. The question is, how much patience will the Jets fan base (not to mention the Jets brass) have? This is the same fan base that didn't pay much attention to the win-loss record in the Jets first season back in Winnipeg. As you may well have heard, the fans in Winnipeg were just ecstatic to have their team back. But five years on, results are now expected. Personally, the mess the management in Atlanta made me think at least six or seven years (with good drafting, which the Jets have accomplished) before any real progress could be made.
They're on their way. But this year seems to be an experiment to try and gel all their top prospects together in an attempt to create a team bond. A culture of winning. When these very young and very talented group of Jets players hit their peak potential together, the talk of the NHL media (outside of Toronto and New York presumably) will turn to Winnipeg and their terrific group of superstars. Yeah, yeah. Edmonton too. Yecch.
