PLAYER SPOTLIGHT: Jets Scheifele scores beauty but spends too much time in own zone
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Mark Scheifele, who led the Winnipeg Jets in scoring during the regular season, scored a memorably beautiful goal on Tuesday night to nearly blow the roof off Canada Life Centre, but you wouldn’t really say he had a good night overall.
Scheifele and his linemates Kyle Connor and Gabe Viilardi spent far too much time in their own zone on the night and that’s never a good thing when you are going up against a Colorado Avalanche team that features superstars like Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.
Scheifele’s Corsi was just 36.96% in the 5-2 loss for the Jets.
He was on the ice for 17 shot attempts by his team at five-on-five and 29 shot attempts by the Avalanche. We may not be experts on analytics, but you can tell when numbers aren’t good.
Scheifele finished the night with a goal, no assists, a minus-2 rating, three shots on goal, six shot attempts, five hits, and went 10-for-18 in the faceoff circle.
His highlight of the night was clearly the second-period goal he scored to put the Jets ahead 2-1.
Connor made a terrific cross-ice pass to Vilardi at the Colorado blue-line and Scheifele made a B-line for the net, creating a two-on-one.
Vilardi fired a hard pass through and Scheifele, with only his left hand on his stick, managed to re-direct the puck to the top shelf behind Colorado goalie Alexandar Georgiev.
“Fantastic pass by Gabe,” Scheifele said. “I knew the guy was kind of there and he didn’t really know where the puck was. So, If I had to go two-handed there, he probably reacts in the same fashion. I just made a judgment call.”
Overall, Scheifele gets a C grade for his performance.
He’ll want to be better when the series shifts to Denver for Games 2 and 3 Friday and Sunday.
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