The Jets need someone to STEP UP...

The Winnipeg Jets need somebody to step up big time as Josh Morrissey is still day-to-day and after losing big to the Anaheim Ducks in their first game without him, someone on the blue line needs to step up and fill this role. In this video, we're going to break down what this means, talk about, you know, how they can get back onto the winning track and so much more. You should not want to miss this episode of Winnipeg Jets Digest. Before we dive into everything here, just want to say around the world for 2,000 subscribers here on the channel. So if you're new here you want to stay up to date on the latest news around the Winnipeg Jets we're here for you on YouTube so come and hit that subscribe button it's completely free to do so but yes today we are back talking about the Winnipeg Jets being bad with without Josh Morrissey let's just put it bluntly because that wasn't a good game right we kind of got blown out by the Anaheim Ducks third and fourth line in this last game and we come out without Morrissey and we fall flat so what can we do what can we change to get back into winning ways and to win games without our top you know quarterback in Josh Morrissey of this offense let's dive right into it here uh as obviously we know Josh Morrissey uh you know left the game um leaves a gap in Winnipeg that must they must fill obviously he left with like a weird wrist injury after running into the glass in one game and now he's still considered day today there's no update at this point i'm sure we'll have it more clear tomorrow on if he's going to be back for Tuesday's game or not so stay tuned to the channel we'll keep you up to date on that tomorrow but right now with Morrissey they're 3-0-1 without him they're all 1-0 so not looking good without Morrissey in the lineup at this point I know it's only been one game and yeah we did didn't we didn't look the best against the Anaheim Ducks let's just put it out there it was a a bad game a throwaway game something we really don't want to look back on but there are some things that happened in this game that we can learn from so let's just kind of talk about it let's just see what we can do going forward to kind of finish stronger obviously we're three one and one to start the year we're excited about that like it just sucked to see us lose that badly right so hopefully we can see something out there and obviously Hayden Fleury the guy who came in in the lineup after Josh Morrissey's absence kind of comes out and says there's no other Josh Morrissey coming into the lineup just saying yeah we don't have anybody with his kind of talent with his time of puck moving with his time of offensive ability from the blue line but we all kind of just got to try to all of us put put everything together and try to fill the gap that is Josh Morrissey and unfortunately last game it didn't work and I think it was in largely in part in fact to the uh the defensive lines I think that the lines were incorrect I think Arneil I think if we had to go another game without Morrissey we'll change the lines to something that's a little bit more familiar which we're going to talk about uh in in a second as well Arneil had to say we're not going to have anyone replicate how much he plays and all offensive that all the offensive situations that he's in just saying yeah like we know how good he is offensively we know how good he is on the power play we know how good he is in the offensive zone but we can't really shift all that focus onto one player we just all the defense really got to step up and be a little bit more offensive now that he's out so I do like this quote from Arneil he's just kind of saying everybody's gotta pick up the slack for this absence and you know if they do we will be successful and we will win hockey games so I think Arneil has the has the right mindset here and if we kind of just look at how the the defensive lines were restructured in this last game uh we see here that it was Sandberg and DeMello with Ferraro and Pionk and Fleury and Bauer I do like Fleury and Fleury and Bauer I think Tyrell Bauer has been one of my biggest favorite surprises this year and I really love his game and I think to me the lines right now should be Ferraro and DeMello, Pionk and Sandberg I don't think you want to break up that Pionk and Sandberg kind of connection that we've been seeing from this team and right now I think that Sandberg and Pionk when they're apart they don't play the same but when they're together they are an amazing defensive pairing so get Ferraro up there with DeMello see how it works out I mean at this point you got nothing to lose I think Ferraro is a great defenseman he's a great uh defender defensive defender and playing with DeMello I think they these guys would really have a great spark together and have a great game together so hopefully we can see that going forward and obviously uh right now you know Morrissey did have three games you know so far this season before he did get injured so he was having a hot start to the season and hopefully he's having a speedy recovery and hopefully we can see him back in this lineup for Tuesday so we don't have to, like, talk about these situations that we are without him because against that Anaheim Ducks team, we fell flat. They beat us off the rush, and they just absolutely demolished us. Like, they were fast, they got to the net, and they scored. Like, they were just so good at that, and we've got to be better at shutting offenses like that down. And obviously, you're missing a guy like Morrissey who would help at that, but, you know, that's not the big reason we lost this game. It's because we kind of faltered defensively. We need to tighten that up heading into next game. We just kind of got to talk about here. Dylan Samberg and Neil Pionk taking bigger roles uh Samberg you know what was a guy who i thought was going to step up in the in the absence of uh of uh Josh Morrissey uh he did get a little bit more minutes you see here he's averaging about 22 minutes a game here logging big minutes every night for this Winnipeg Jets team and you know i think he had a solid game you know he's not going to fill the role of uh Dylan Samberg right away or of Josh Morrissey right away uh but i think he did the right things in this situation getting a few extra minutes to really help this team out going forward and also just looking at you know what he's big on is his block shots and he's a big minute eater right like he's not a big point guy he's not a big offensive guy but he did try to implement that into his game a little bit more in that last showing against the Anaheim Ducks which I did love to see but we know Samberg is a defensive guy stick him with that with that offensive guy in Neil Pionk they've been great all along for the Winnipeg Jets so just keep these guys together and just keep their connection going because you don't really want to break that up I know you're losing guy like Morrison you want to see Samberg you know start on the top pairing but make the top pairing Samberg and Pionk right like just make that and I think that would make this team a lot better and just speaking of Pionk he's been needing big minutes this year as well 23 minutes in his last five games is what he's kind of averaging right now which is great to see uh from Neil Pionk and just looking at his scouting report as well uh you know he's a big block shot guy he's got a big he's got a big shot from the blue line though he can whip him on the net uh and hopefully you know that would create some offensive chances for this team without Morrissey he's kind of the guy i'm looking at as the offensive guy to replace Morrissey obviously nobody's gonna replace Morrissey's talent but this is a guy who can whip shots on sift them on looking for tips in front and he's very accurate at that so getting him more minutes up on this top pairing with Sandberg i think would definitely be the way to go to kind of fix the defense that is right now And Sandberg against the Anaheim Ducks, like I said, I thought he had a solid game. His plus-minus remained a zero in the loss, which is great. He had two hits, one block in this game. And Pionk on the other side without Sandberg really, really struggled. He was a dash three on the night. He had two hits, one block in this game. So get these guys back together. I think that really helps you out going forward, and I think that might be all you need to win this next game in my opinion. But obviously they're missing their power play quarterback as well as they missed their power play chances against the anaheim ducks uh you see here their power play percentage is still good on the year at 29 which is great to see uh but obviously the missed power plays uh in that last game were a reason why we lost five to one uh we went over four on the power play you know without Morrissey i mean he's a guy who really helped us out on the power play unit uh this season and you just kind of see Arneil says first we are creating uh those opportunities so just you know we just got to create the opportunities create the chances to score and just looking at Morrissey on the power play he has two power play points on the year so far like I said leading to a great power play because he's just so good at orchestrating that you know power play five on four and obviously without him it's gonna try to we're trying to find someone that can step up into that role we've seen Sandberg and Pionk up there but you know obviously nobody's gonna fill the role of Morrissey but you know I did like what I've seen out of those guys to be honest with you Kyle Connor has been the real driver of this power play for sure with 4.3 power play goals for us this year which is great to see and obviously he didn't really have his defenseman to kind of set him up here so uh you know we kind of just need to make some more adjustments now that we have a little bit more practice time heading into the game which is on Tuesday obviously it's Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend so i don't know if they'll be practicing on Monday uh but you know they probably will uh but uh yeah we'll have to see what the lines look like how they work on the power play because right now they just need to work on it they got to start the cycle and just work on the power play and just try to get it better because we've got to convert on these opportunities like we were earlier this year and just looking at Pionk you know he only got one point on the year he's got nine blocks nine hits though so just need to get a little bit more offensive production out of Pionk as well to put us in the right position to win games uh you know we just need to make the power play adjustments as well get support close to Pionk move the pucks before the pressure arrives put traffic in front of the goalie so he can shoot them on and just create havoc with those rebounds that come off and obviously a big thing going into this too is Winnipeg must protect the puck uh before Minnesota like we just gotta you know avoid avoid forcing plays maybe we're trying too much is what uh Mario Ferraro said maybe we're trying too much and we just need to simplify it go short be more direct and I think that will uh lead to a better game for this Winnipeg Jets team and it's great to see all these guys kind of you know be you know three one and one on the year and after their first loss they're all kind of say okay we've tried too much here let's just simplify things it's great to see them you know critiquing themselves because that's a great sign for the future so far Ferraro this year is eight blocks seven hits a point he's not a big point guy but he has one on the board already and he's doing his job uh defensively which is great to see uh Stevenson yeah had a little bit bad start there by the numbers a .750 save percentage on the night for him i don't want to blame it all on him because a lot of the goals were off the rush and i still got a lot of faith in Stevenson so i don't really want to chop this one up to Stevenson i think it was just a bad play all around and especially by the defense to kind of allow those uh chances off the rush Kyle Connor was the guy who kind of scored in this last game to kind of keep us alive gets a goal keeps his streak going and it's great to see him you know obviously have that he's gold number six comes from you know the right circle on the left side by the hash mark nice snipe by him there obviously was the only kind of bright spot offensively in this game so hopefully we can take this momentum take these changes that i mentioned with putting Sandberg and Pion back together and just see if this will help us win this next game obviously it's going to be a tough test right now because we're going up against the Minnesota Wild and right now we're tied with them in points in the central division both with seven apiece tied for second in this division and hopefully we can go out there beat a tough team in Minnesota and show everybody that we're a team to be reckoned with this season and we don't want to be messed with even without our top guy we can still go out and beat one of the best teams in the league so hopefully we can see that happen hopefully we can see these changes uh help the Winnipeg Jets going into this next crucial game what do you think uh what way you think needs fixing before Morrissey uh you know comes you know comes back do you think we need to fix the power play do you think we need to be more defensive do you think we need more forward support let me know what you guys are thinking down below in the comment section hopefully we'll see Morrissey back Tuesday night against the Minnesota Wild but if not i think we're in good shape with Sandberg and Pionk on the top line with Ferraro and DeMello let me know if you guys think that fixes the problem download in the comments while you're down there leave a like subscribe to the channel as always everyone else KC keep your stick on the ice