Drew Stafford is Destroying the Winnipeg Jets Season
Whichever way you want to slice it or dice it, hockey is a team game. A player who takes a penalty can`t kill it off from the penalty box. No single player has scored 100 goals in a season, and no team has ever scored less than 100 goals in a full season. This single-handedly proves one player can`t win a season, or even a single game or two by himself. Ultimately, if one player makes one mistake and it costs their team a game, that team wasn`t good enough anyways.
That being said, there`s still no excuse in the world to cover up Drew Stafford`s play as of late. The Winnipeg Jets main “knock“ coming into this season was supposed to be that they are a young team. A young team full of offensively gifted players who may cause the odd giveaway, or scoring chances against. Stupid stick infraction penalties, or other mistakes in general to cause un-necessary loses.
That itself is a huge cause for concern as the rookies themselves aren`t the ones making mistakes, it’s the veterans who are supposed to be spelling off the young guns. Countless number of Dustin Byfuglien, Drew Stafford, or Mathieu Perreault giveaways have outnumbered backchecks and poke-checks by rookies like Josh Morrissey and Nikolaj Ehlers. Here`s exactly how the Winnipeg Jets could be on a four-game winning streak, something they haven’t accomplished in years, if it’s not for Drew Stafford.
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Lets go back to the Jets game against the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday. Third round of the shootout and the Winnipeg Jets need a goal to stay alive. On the bench sits skilled players like Mathieu Perreault, or NIkolaj Ehlers, but Drew Staffords plentiful of shootout attempts, and overall “experience” landed him a gig. At a scoring percentage of just under 33%, chances are Petr Mrazek will make a save on the 31-year-old anyways. And sure enough the game was put away by Mrazek’s glove, off a wrist shot from Stafford that seemingly went straight to the leather. If you’re going to lose, you may as well lose on your best attempt, not firing a shot at the net that had a chance of missing altogether anyways.
Now back to today, three minutes left and Stafford gets caught high-sticking Dan Girardi under the jaw. If this doesn’t fit the bill as “a stupid stick infraction”, than what does. It seems the bad penalties called in bad times are always the ones that come back and haunt you, and that’s what happened to the Jets, they lost their second straight with just seconds to spare.
Drew Stafford needs to up his game. He needs to start playing better, scoring goals, and letting the rookies make the mistakes. If he continues how he’s playing, the Jets will have no choice but to reunite Stafford and Ondrej Pavelec with the Manitoba Moose once Joel Armia and Nic Petan come back from injury.