Jets are this season’s biggest disappointment Winnipeg is staring at another year without postseason hockey despite strong showings from youngsters Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers and Patrik Laine, Travis Yost writes

If there’s one truth about the 2016-17 NHL season, it’s that the Winnipeg Jets have been the league’s biggest disappointment.

I’m not sure how they’ve skirted greater national criticism with this year’s 78-point pace showing, but they have. It’s perplexing, considering the following:

- In 2015-16, they both outshot (51.3 per cent) and outscored their opposition at 5-on-5 (50.3 per cent)

- The Western Conference – primarily by way of St. Louis, Dallas, Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Vancouver all taking steps back and Arizona and Colorado being completely uncompetitive – has turned into a gigantic mess of mediocrity

- The team’s roster has held reasonably constant, with the only notable changes coming in the form of big developmental payoffs from Mark Scheifele and Nikolaj Ehlers, plus the addition of superstar winger Patrik Laine (This line, new to the Jets in 2016-17, has scored 57 per cent of goals when together)

That all seems like a recipe for success, doesn’t it? The only job the Jets had was to hold tight at 5-on-5 and try to figure out their goaltending – an issue that probably single-handedly sunk their playoff chances in the year prior.

I think all of the above points are interesting in retrospect, and I wonder if the Jets front office is quietly kicking and screaming about how they handled the off-season. In a league where basically 26 NHL franchises think they have a shot at a postseason berth in the summer, the Jets were extremely conservative.

Internally, they have to be struggling with that. No one could have expected their trio of young forwards to be so dominant. No one could have predicted the collapse of the middle of the Western Conference.

The Jets are staring down another season without a Game 83. Not only will the team fail to make the playoffs, the underlying numbers suggest that they have taken a considerable step back in performance.

Consider the below year-over-year numbers for what we would deem to be key performance metrics. They aren’t encouraging:

Here’s the scary part: Where, exactly, has this team improved? The only category that saw positive change at 5-on-5 was team shooting percentage. Although I think Laine individually can sustain some of the crazy stuff he’s doing, this isn’t exactly the statistic you want to hang your hat on. Time after time, we see team shooting percentages regress sharply to league averages, which means a chunk of that improvement is probably fleeting.

Everything else is a repeatable skill. And in every facet, they’ve degraded. As a skating unit, they’ve moved from pretty respectable to below league average without changing much of the roster. Their goaltending, despite being pretty terrible last season, has somehow worsened with time.

The special teams have technically improved, but that’s sort of stretching things. We are talking about basically a one-goal improvement in each area – the year-over-year delta is essentially zero. At the end of the day, they still are a poor special teams bunch.

Which means: They don’t skate very well at 5-on-5, they can’t get a save, their power play can’t bail them out, and many of the penalties they do take will likely end up in goals against.

So, what’s Winnipeg’s next step here? The first order of business, as it was in the Atlanta Thrashers era of this franchise, is to find a goaltender. Connor Hellebuyck seems like a piece, but there are questions about his value – his 90.7 per cent stop rate isn’t nearly good enough for starter duties just yet, but maybe there’s development to come for the 23-year-old. Michael Hutchinson and Ondrej Pavelec have been dreadful this season and it seems like there’s little path forward for either of them in Winnipeg.

There are names available, and whichever one you pick out of a hat is almost a certainty an upgrade over the status quo. Ben Bishop, Brian Elliott, Chad Johnson, and Jonathan Bernier are all unrestricted, and will vary in expense. Regardless, an upgrade is absolutely necessary here. It’s worth mentioning that last year’s Jets team would have conceded about 27 less goals with average goaltending, turning their differential from about -24 to +3. This year’s more disparate: The Hutchinson, Pavelec, and Hellebuyck combination has already cost the team 35 goals against league average, and there’s still a bunch of games left.

You can take a decent run at the skaters too. I certainly subscribe to the notion that they could use at least one more defender and replacements for guys like Chris Thorburn and Brandon Tanev in their bottom six. But at the end of the day, the talent at the skater level, though underperforming, seems like it’s mostly in place.

If I’m a Jets executive and think my roster has ample talent, I wonder if my current coaching staff is getting enough out of it. The Jets were interested in extending a couple of months ago, but Maurice decided to put negotiations on hold. It’ll be fascinating to see if the extension talks heat up as the season winds down, or if Winnipeg management will have a change of heart.

Considering their performance this year, I’d say that’s a possibility.