Winnipeg Jets Off To Fastest Start In NHL History By Capitalizing Like The Los Angeles Dodgers
Through 16 games the Winnipeg Jets are the best team in hockey and speaking in ways familiar to anyone who watched the Los Angeles Dodgers finish off the New York Yankees in a five-game World Series.
Nearly two weeks after the Dodgers ended the Yankee season, the Jets spoke of being opportunistic, chasing pucks and hunting out mistakes which they spent the bulk of their two hours and 25 minutes doing so against the New York Rangers, an opponent with a deceivingly good record.
Just like the five runs the Dodgers scored in the fifth on Oct. 30, a bulk of the six goals scored by the Jets occurred of miscues.
"This league is about pressure," Jets coach Scott Arniel said after his team scored off a turnover 57 seconds into their 6-3 win over the Rangers. "When you're good at it, you can make it hard on the opposition."
In other words the Jets looked like a hockey version of the Dodgers as a team on skates and not cleats seeking out a mistake and waiting for the chance to pounce. It was the gist of some of their postgame comments after pulling away against the Rangers, a team with plenty of talent but also lacking in some fundamental areas like the Yankees at times.
The Jets scored three times indirectly off turnovers, won numerous puck battles and simply outraced the Rangers, embracing the concept of waiting for an opponent mistake to occur. It gave them 15 wins in their first 16 to start this season roughly after seven months after getting swept in the first round by the Colorado Avalanche.
"You know, you would never have drawn it up this way," Arniel said. "We had talked about it at the start of the year of banking points. We've got a very tough division, a tough Western Conference. We've got to eliminate eight teams to get into the big dance. Yeah, I don't think I quite drew it up this way, but certainly the guys have earned every inch of it."
"You play at MSG, you've got to put on a show," center Mark Scheifele said after scoring two goals, including the opening goal off a Mika Zibanejad defensive zone giveaway. "It feels amazing. Obviously, it's been a great start for us, but tonight's over. Enjoy the win. And then back to work."
The achievement made them better than teams who won 15 of their first 17. The previous fastest was the 2022-23 Boston Bruins, 2007-08 Ottawa Senators, 2006-07 Buffalo Sabres, 1985-86 Philadelphia Flyers and 1929-30 Boston Bruins.
None of those teams found Stanley Cup glory to be their friend.
Only the 1929-30 Bruins played for the title and that was so long ago, they just needed two wins in the opening round to advance.
The Bruins of two seasons ago won 65 times in the regular season and then blew a three games to one lead in the opening round to the Florida Panthers by dropping a pair of overtimes. The Senators went 28-30-8 the rest of the way and were swept out of the first round by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Sabres were a 53-win team and the best in the Eastern Conference and then scored 10 times in a five-game loss to the Senators in the conference finals. The Flyers blazed to 15 wins in 17 games, won the President's Trophy and then were ousted in five by the Rangers in a first-round series, setting up a chance for the Montreal Canadiens to go all the way.
While players were probably not cognizant of the final results of teams who won 15 of 17, sub-consciously they were talking as if they knew.
"Honestly, we know what we're doing, but we don't take too much stock in it," Kyle Connor said. "It's move onto the next one. It's how can we improve? How can we be better? I think that's what has made us successful to this point. Nobody is satisfied. There's still areas we can work on. We've won 15, but I think it speaks to the leadership, not getting comfortable. There's still a lot of season left."
On the other side, the Rangers looked like a flawed team with a good record just like the 94-win Yankees, doing so after they were the President's Trophy winners and little over six months after winning their first seven postseason games.
At 9-4-1, they were lamenting some of the fundamental things of puck management just like Aaron Judge regretted dropping a fly ball, Gerrit Cole lamented not covering first base and Anthony Volpe regretted not making a better throw to third base.
"I don't think we were pressing," Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. "When you're playing a team that's firing offensively and the execution isn't where it needs to be, it can turn around on you pretty quickly."
Just like the roughly 20 minutes it took the Dodgers to go from trailing by five runs to being tied.
The combined playoff record of those teams
