Hey, Jess fans, welcome back to game over Winnipeg. My name is les one, your regular host over here on the show. Hope you all had a very happy holiday, a merry Christmas if you're celebrating all that good stuff. I was excited to come back and join you guys. I was real excited right off the gate seeing how exciting things were for the Jets.

A little bit stinky to lose that one the way that they did. But regardless, we're going to talk about it. We're going to have some fun. So if you're here in the live chat right now, thank you so much for being here. We always appreciate you coming out to join us.

It's just me, obviously by myself tonight, so make sure you're in the chat live with me today because we're going to be taking chat questions and chat comments all game or no, the game is over. We're done. Hence the show game over all stream. We're going to be talking about the chat, having all that good stuff. But before we get too, too into the game, I just want to give you guys a little rundown on life.

What's going on with me? What's going on over here at game over? So obviously we all had a couple days off. I hope everyone had some great family time if that's what you were hoping to do over Halloween. Guys, we're in for a rough one tonight, aren't we?

If that's what you're hoping to do over Christmas, I hope that you're able to do. So we have some fun stuff going over here at SDPN. We had a couple fun games going on tonight. Obviously a bunch of games back on the docket for the first night of games after the little Christmas break. And we're also doing some world junior coverage over here at SCPN, which has been really fun so far.

We had Peter hosting the game against Finland for the first game on Boxing Day. We had Audi hosting today. We partnered up with Elite prospects, which has been really fun so far. They're really cool. Obviously they know a ton about all the players that we have in the tournament.

For those of you who are unaware, we got three jets prospects kicking in the tournament and obviously the entirety of Team Canada as most of us tend to cheer for them. Rucker McGuardy is the captain of the american team, so he's happening in the other pool. So pretty much every game you get to see him do some fun stuff. He's come back nice and early from his injury, which has been really cool. Really nice to see him out there.

In that leadership role that jets or fans know he's capable of filling. And then we also have two Winnipeg jets prospects in the Canada pool on Team Sweden. Solomonson was suspended for a game from a hit that he made against Latvia in his first game. So he won't be playing against Canada tomorrow, or, pardon me, the day after tomorrow when Sweden plays Canada. But Fabian Wagner is also playing in the tournament.

So those are the three guys to watch for. If you're looking for jets prospects in the world juniors, make sure you catch everything over here at game over international. I'll be doing the show against Sweden, so that's going to be really fun. But let's get into it because people in the chat want to know how the Winnipeg jets power play is so bad. And you know what?

I feel like I'm not going to open the show with that. I'm not going to open the show with that. We're just going to talk a little bit about the kind of schematics of the game going into this. For those of you who are live in the chat, thank you so much. We're going to be chatting over the course of this game a little bit together, but let's get into kind of what was surrounding this game before going into it.

So obviously teams have a little bit of rest right off the bat when you come off from Christmas. Fun fact, I actually saw Nino Niederider out for lunch on Christmas Eve, so he stayed in town. He had some family in, which was nice. So a lot of the players ended up taking a little bit of time off as they deserve, spend some time with family. And people always wonder, what is it?

There's like a saying, know, you got to shake the gravy off or whatever, because we all probably ate a ton over Christmas. If you were celebrating and the jets were pretty good right out the gate, I found, at least I thought that they had a lot of jump to their step and a lot of good things. And it was one of those things where really early on you could tell that this was like a top five team in the NHL playing against the bottom ten team in the NHL, right? Like there were just little things that were kind of going on over the course of the game that made me truly believe that this Winnipeg jets team was a much stronger team than the Chicago Blackhawks team, especially at five on five. Trust, guys.

We will get into the power play. We will get into it. Even though I feel like I've hashed this one out so many times. I know we got to talk about it. We're saying it in the chat that the jets are basically the better team all game, and that's 100% the truth.

I thought the Winnipeg jets looked pretty good in a lot of different areas. And it's one of those things where personally, I really like looking at things like possession time or whatever to sort of get a good scope of how a team is doing over the course of a game, what they look like. But this was a game where possession time is not enough. And what I mean by that is the winter by jets were great in the fields of shot attempts and all those kinds of things, but it was the actual quality of that possession time that kind of ended up killing them in this game. They played a good hockey game.

They really did. Like if I pulled up the hockey stat card here. Holy Dinah. I don't know if you guys can see if you're watching live. These are all in the positive.

We have players with game scores that were well above the one point percentile sort of thing, much better than they were. It's much more of a positive individual player result kind of across the board, but it just wasn't enough. And what I mean by that is actually there was a comment that was made early in the game by Kevin Sawyer or Dan Robertson that I didn't believe at first. And it was that the Winnipeg jets are our third in the league in tipped shots or something like that, which I think is really interesting because I think what kind of killed the Winnipeg jets tonight was their inability to capitalize on the really good possession that they were creating for themselves. And so what I mean by that is the jets play a one two two, right?

Like, we know that across the board, jets have been playing their one two two all season, every single game. And when Chicago is a little bit weaker when it comes to carrying pucks up the ice, I thought the Winnipeg jets did a really good job of snuffing out the Chicago Blackhawks breakout right from the neutral zone when they had their three higher forwards. And I thought it turned into a lot of really good rush chances and things. Well, rushes, but it was the chances, right? I can say the rush chances.

It wasn't rush chances. They had some good rushes, but it wasn't really manifesting into anything that I thought was really strong enough to create those really high expected goals and all those kinds of things. Some of the people in the chat are saying that Peter Morazzic looked good. And don't get me wrong, he did. He did.

And I think Peter Morazzic kind of bailed out the Blackhawks a couple of times that really kept this a one one hockey game for a good chunk, and frankly, a one nothing hockey game for when Chicago had that lead. I think Morazzic made some really timely saves and stuff like that. But for as much dominance as the Winnipeg jets showed with the puck and carrying the puck, they didn't capitalize nearly the way they wanted to. And I think we got to talk about the power play because I think that's kind of where a lot of this leads. And we could talk a lot about things like face offs or blocks or hits and things like that, right?

Those individual isolated plays. And when it comes to me, what I talk about, when it comes to what I care about, when I'm watching a team, when I'm looking at them to see what's happening, I care about how they're doing in the parts of the game that make up the largest proportion of the game. What I mean by that is transition and five on five possession and things like that. Those are the things that I really look to make sure that the team is doing well because the little, little things take up such a small percentage of the game that you really need to make sure that most of the game is won in the in between as opposed to the isolated plays. So I thought a lot of that in between was happening.

But this is one of those nights where it's the little things that kind of just kill you. And it's frustrating for someone like me who has to come on here and talk about it afterwards because I want to talk about all these different analytical things that I saw and I had all these notes or whatever, but at the end of the day, it's Connor Berdard getting three shots in front of the net and it's a Mark Scheifeley back check of 2019 2020 era that just sealed the deal for this game and gave the Winnipeg jets ultimately only one point when they definitely deserved to. So let's take a look at what people are saying in the chat here. So Brady says only saw second half of the game, but I don't think Morazzi played all that incredibly. Jets just didn't seem to create enough chaos and poor shot selection.

I 100% agree that the chaos is the big word there. And last time the Winnipeg jets played the Chicago Blackhawks, Bedard also opened the scoring in that game. And what I remember about that game specifically is that that goal was created in the chaos, right? And talent wins in the moments of chaos. So Connor Badard, those three bang, bang, bang.

Shots that he had in the slot. Talent wins, right? He makes those shots and he is more likely to score in those situations than someone who is a lesser talented player than him. Right. The Winnipeg jets, most of the time when they're on the ice against the Chicago Blackhawks, have the better talent that's out there.

So if you create a little bit more chaos, the ods are, you're likely going to win in a lot of those situations of chaos. So those are the things that kind of frustrate you because ultimately there are a lot of really small one offs that decide hockey games. So let's get into the one offs. Those are I want to talk about some of the I can't. Hell must be freezing over because I want to talk about refing.

The girl who never, ever wants to speak about refing. I wanted to talk about special teams. And refing has got to play a little piece into this. So listen, I do not believe that Gary Betman has rigged the league in favor of the Chicago Blackhawks. I do not believe that refs put on their jerseys every night and say I'm going to make this team win a hockey game.

I do not believe that anyone in the league cares about your team or my team. I think there is just a lot of inconsistency across the board. And anyone who cries Wolf about how refs hate the Winnipeg jets or anything like that, you're lost on me. I'm sorry. I don't believe it because every team faces inconsistencies, but some of the inconsistencies tonight were a little crazy.

And I know everyone wants to talk about the Lowry penalty and I'm really curious to see what the chat is saying. So for those of you who are live in the chat, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you jumping on and hope you're having a good holiday season so far. Can we talk about that Lowry penalty for a second near the end of the second Lowry or end of the second? End of the first?

End of the second, I think it was Adam Lowry gets a goalie interference penalty and listen, I understand that there is a need to protect goaltenders in this league and I understand that if a goalie gets blown off his feet that you need to blow a whistle or do something or whatever. But what is Adam Lowry supposed to do in that situation? That's my genuine question for this. I understand players need to be in control of their sticks and all these kinds of things, but the two factors that led to that Adam Lowry penalty were Adam Lowry getting shoved and Peter Morazic hanging out a foot and a half outside of his crease. What are the Winnipeg jets supposed to do there?

What is Adam Lowry supposed to do? He literally didn't. He tried to get out of the way and all these. Obviously, you know, morazzic gets rocked so the refs want to do something, but you can't fault a player for that. And two minutes of a man advantage.

I don't care that it's the Chicago Blackhawks is crazy to do in a situation like that. And I think a lot of the people in the chat are kind of agreeing with me here. Jeff and Lucas are saying that just a crazy refing on that particular Lowry penalty because again, we flip these around, we flip the jerseys. If Conor Hallbuck gets absolutely bulldozed, I'm pissed, right? Like, I'm not, I'm not pleased.

But you have to understand, when your own player shoves him into a goalie in a spot where the goalie's not supposed to be, he doesn't have ownership on that white paint, I don't know what we're supposed to do in that situation. Brady says that Samberg got rocked from behind in the mid second. One of those Beauvillier penalties was just a little bit of a weak call to me. Shout out to Nino Nieder for busting in and drawing a call there on. I don't know if it's like Jared Tenori or something like that.

There are a couple of calls that I found were a little on the light side in this game, and then you make that Lowry call and it's like, what are we even doing here? And listen, this game was not won or lost because of the refping. And I will rarely say that there are times because again, isolated plays can decide hockey games all the time. I get it. They do.

I care more about what happens in the aggregate than I do about the one offs that you can't control. But that's frustrating. And I think that the other thing that's frustrating is that this repping conversation has been a very long, ongoing conversation all season where people are posting clips of things. Even. There was a shifly shot.

He was like coming in almost like a brick, just got absolutely slammed from the side. And it was just like the most absurd thing. We're seeing these videos posted all the time of these non calls or calls that are made, and it gets frustrating and it gets tiring because at a certain point how much game management is too much game management. And I feel like we're seeing a little bit of that as of late. But the reason I kind of wanted to talk about that is because I think we need to get into what happens when Adam Lowry goes to the box.

Who cares who called it? We get a power play, we get a special teams, we see a penalty kill, we see a power play, whatever. There are a couple of penalties in this game. So that means there are a couple of Winnipeg jets power plays. And oh my goodness, I'm so done talking about this.

I say, as I proceed to probably talk about this for the next ten or 15 minutes, but it's fine. This Winnipeg jets power play. I am so tired and I want to shout out my co host Brady, that he posted a little clip. I'm really glad he did. Of Mark Scheifeley.

That's just a perfect summary of what happens when Mark Schifley is on the left wall in the power. Just. There's no shot. There's no shot. This to me was a shoot game.

And you know what I mean by that. The people at jets game would go shoot and you're like, oh my God, shut up. This was a shoot game for me. There were times when the Winnipeg jets simply needed to shoot the puck. And Adam Lowry.

No, I'm sorry, I'm reading the chat at the same time. Mark Schifley won't shoot the puck even though it's such a weapon, even though he's carrying it up and down the left wall for like 15 to 20 seconds without any sign of threat. And it's killing them. It's killing them. And Mark Scheifeley is not as an individual killing the power play, but Mark Scheifley's utilization on that half wall and just the amalgamation of the players being where they are doing what they're doing is absolutely killing this power play.

And I know we had to change a couple things a few games ago because they're like, this isn't working. Spoiler alert. It's still not working. And genuinely, at this point, I think if I were coaching the power play and if I wasn't allowed to change the players or something like that, my recommendation would be for them to play like a little overtime type of thing where you carry the puck in and then if it doesn't work, you carry it out and you go again. Because the Winnipeg jets are getting their best looks in the power play before they get a chance to set up and establish their positioning.

And it doesn't matter who they're playing against. I don't know if Chicago is a good penalty killing team or not. But as soon as everyone set up and was stagnant, that was it. It was toast. There was no danger whatsoever and it was really, really frustrating.

So Lucas in the chat is saying, honestly, Profetti needed to shoot the puck. And I think Profetti is the player that I want to talk about when it comes to that power play. Because taking him off of there was not the move. It was not the move. He is not the reason that power play is struggling as much as they are.

And I think the thing that's really hard is that he was the one who was taken off to that power play unit maybe six games ago. I'll say four games ago. It really wasn't that long ago. And the reason he was taken off was because, well, probably the same reason that he only got three shifts in the third period tonight, right? Like this team, just as much as we want to, Galaxy Brandon or whatever, they don't trust him yet.

They're not trusting him to be in these big, important decision making roles yet. But I think they got to bring him back. And he's a shooting threat, he's a passing threat. That's the biggest thing is he can move the puck and he can move players and find seams unlike any other player that's currently on this Winnipeg jets power play unit. And that's what they need is someone to find those pucks or, pardon me, find those lanes to shoot those pucks properly.

Because it's not Mark Scheifer in the left wall. I can tell you for free. It is not Mark Scheifer in the left wall. He is not finding the players to be shooting threats. He is not establishing himself as a shooting threat.

And it's part of the reason that this Winnipeg jets power play is struggling as heavily as they are. So I'd really like to hear what everyone else in the chat's thoughts are on this power play because I'll be honest, it is kind of my biggest point of contention with this Winnipeg jets team so far. But that's a good thing. And I think that's the piece that is really important to kind of look at when you look at this team in the grand scheme of things, right? Is that their power play?

I will take their power play being an issue over their five on five play any day of the week. Why? Because most of the game is spent at five on five. And yes, you need to learn how to capitalize on the chances that you are given. That's how you win hockey games, is by turning the good times into actual goals.

Trust me, I get it, I get it. But systematically and like personnel wise and all these different kinds of things, if you can't play hockey at five on five, you're never going to make it anywhere. And this team is playing really good hockey at five on five. The thing is just establishing a little bit more of a chaotic threat at five on five and then fixing that power play. And I think those things kind of go hand in hand together.

It's the capitalization. Capitalization is a word, but I feel like I think about it in a grammar context, not a hockey context, but you know what I mean. The capitalization is the biggest piece in a lot of these areas. And in a night like tonight, I think the Winnipeg jets were actually quite good in transition and things like that. And those are the bits and pieces that we struggle with with this team for so long.

And maybe it's Kyle Connor, maybe it's. I don't know. Because I'm a firm believer that this team doesn't need Kyle Connor to succeed. I think it's a nice to have, not a need to have, but a player like that who can just get those shots off and score a couple more goals. Because again, in a couple of those situations tonight, right, where a top six line has all this possession, all you need is someone to come in and take that shot, right?

And that was what wasn't happening tonight. And the Winnipeg jets were out shooting the Chicago Blackhawks and all those kinds of things, but it was the right shots that they were missing. Right. We can have people unload from the top of the circles all day long and that's fine. And people in the chat have said, and I agree with them, that morazzic was good in this game.

And shout out to Peter Morazic because I don't have a lot of faith in Peter Morazzic as a goaltender. Just generally, it's. It's hard to watch your team do that when they're doing a lot of the things right and all the things that you beg for them to do right for a good chunk of the season, that's what they're doing right. So that's why I can't really be mad about this and that Conor Badarko, it's a one off Mark Scheifeley play that trust. I'm sure he's going to be seeing that in his nightmares and so will all of like that was just a horrifying play to watch from Mark Scheifeley, as always, not as always.

Sorry, that was so mean as previous, not as we've seen a lot of this year. But all that's to say, it was the little things that wrecked this game for me tonight, which is so frustrating but is not super discouraging to me going forward. So a couple of quick comments I wanted to make about the Chicago Blackhawks before we wrap up because we don't need to drag this one out too much. We have a couple of jets games coming up and back to back games in the next couple of days and then I have about a million shows in January because Brady's headed on vacation. But trust we're not going to have a lot of solo shows coming up.

Don't worry, we be getting guests because we know that it's better that way. But about the Chicago Blackhawks, I just want to give a shout out to Kevin Korchinski. I thought that was a player who looked really good tonight and I was really impressed by a lot of what I saw. The little play on Dominic Toninato wasn't a huge fan of Kevin, if I'm being honest with you. But between him and Berdard, there's some really fun youth that they're pulling a lot of weight on the Chicago Blackhawks roster right now.

And it's really fun to watch young kids jump in those fun positions and just be given a lot of responsibility because the stakes are so low for the Chicago Blackhawks, right? Like no one's expecting anything of them, so you can really let them run. And I thought they both looked really fun tonight. Obviously Badard ended up potting two goals, but what else is new? That's just kind of what we're going to grow to expect from him, especially being in the Central division and all that.

But I wanted to shout out both those players because I thought they both looked fabulous tonight. So just a couple of general points to sum up tonight's game and going forward. David Gustavson sounds like from the Morgan Baron interview I wasn't on Twitter too much today, didn't make the trip out to Chicago. I don't know if he's hurt. I don't know if he'sick or what's going on, so I don't know what's happening.

I'm not a fan of pulling Gus out of the lineup by choice. If the choice was made for them by an injury or by an illness, it is what it is, and I thought Dominic, Tony Dino looked great tonight. I thought he'd look totally fine. That fourth line was killing it, as always. But it'll be interesting to see if Saturday in Winnipeg, when the jets take on the wild in the matinee, if David gossip then draws back into the lineup or not.

It'll be interesting to see that that was the big personnel change from tonight. We know we have a couple of players getting closer to injury, but it's closer to return from injury. But I have a feeling we're going to see a similar looking roster for the next couple of days. Winnipeg jets taking on the Minnesota Wild on Saturday for what I believe is the first time this season. I don't think we've played the Minnesota Wild yet this year.

I might be wrong. It's been a bit of a blur the last couple of weeks, but I'm really excited to see Brock faber play. People have been talking mad nice about him for the last couple of weeks and know if it weren't for Bedard, it sounds like he's almost a shoe in for the Calder, which is pretty high praise. He's been playing some pretty good hockey over there in Minnesota so I'm really excited to see him play. We have a back to back with Minnesota on the 30th and the 31st with a little New Year's Eve game, so hopefully we get some good stuff from them.

As far as what I'm looking for in the next game, it's going to be a little bit more so I mentioned that stat earlier about how the jets have a lot of tip shots, which surprised me, but I'm pleased to hear. I want more of that. I want more of those chaotic shots. I want more traffic in the middle of that spot there. Even Gabe Velardi, for example, is just as soon as he's in front of that net, a little bit more chaos is created and it really helps everything in the grand scheme of things.

Vladimirkov, also I barely talked about tonight, needs to get a special shout out. That's exactly what he does at all times. But he was fabulous tonight. He was firing in all cylinders. What two posts?

I was so ready for a goal from that boy in overtime. That's all I wanted more than oxygen was for Vladimirkov to get that goal because he really deserved it. He got my special shout out of the game. But generally speaking, I have no beef with the Winnipeg jets right now at five on five, which is where most of us. I hope you guys have a fabulous rest of your evening.

We will see you on Saturday. I have a guest coming on and then Brady and I are going to do New Year's Eve little wrap up of 2023 show with you guys coming up in a few days, so that'll be really fun. I'm also going to be on game over Winnipeg. No, that's where I am right now is game over Winnipeg. I'm on game over international on Friday when Canada takes on Sweden and the world juniors.

Gonna be chilling with elite prospects and doing some game over coverage for the world juniors, which is gonna be really fun. So make sure you check that out as well as checking out after every single world junior game. When Canada plays, we will have some coverage right over here on game over. So thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in tonight. We'll have some more good shows for you lined up.

Appreciate the support as always. Take care and we'll see you next time. Game over. Close.