Jets grateful for help from ‘the Connor McDavid of video coaches’
Having orchestrated two successful coach’s challenges — stripping the Carolina Hurricanes of a 1-0 lead in the first period and then later extending the lead to 3-0 in the third period — Matt Prefontaine was the unofficial first star of the night.
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WINNIPEG — While goalies are always quick to credit the players in front of them after a shutout, Eric Comrie went a different route on Thursday night.
The praise went to Matt Prefontaine, the Winnipeg Jets‘ video coach. Not a defenceman that made a painful blocked shot, or a forward that scored a couple of goals to provide run support.
Yes, the video coach.
Having orchestrated two successful coach’s challenges — stripping the Carolina Hurricanes of a 1-0 lead in the first period and then later extending the lead to 3-0 in the third period — Prefontaine was the unofficial first star of the night.
And to those within the club, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Prefontaine, who is lauded within his industry and has given presentations at coaching conferences, has helped Winnipeg succeed on all but one of its seven challenges this season. The lone unsuccessful bid was that head-scratching missed goaltender interference call against Tampa Bay in November.
“Matty’s the best in the business,” Comrie said after his 29-save shutout. “When I was in Buffalo, our video coach there (was) talking about Matty like he’s the greatest thing ever. He’s the Connor McDavid of video coaches. This is an actual conversation with (Buffalo Sabres) video coach Justin White. He goes, ‘You know Matty Prefontaine? What’s he like as a guy, how good is he?’ I was like, OK, now I understand how good he is.”
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The first challenge saw Winnipeg challenge for goaltender interference on Jackson Blake’s power-play goal with just under four and a half minutes remaining in the first period.
“Anytime those challenges go your way, they boost you,” Scott Arniel said. “If they get off and get a 1-0 lead, they’re on the road and they can shut down with the best of them.”
Typically, Prefontaine and hockey video coordinator James Cochrane only have half a minute, or so, to make a judgment call on a challenge. That’s not a lot of time to decide on a challenge, which, if unsuccessful, results in a minor penalty
“There’s a lot of pressure on them,” Nino Niederreiter said.
That’s what made the Jets’ second challenge — where they contested that Rasmus Kupari had not interfered with Pyotr Kochetkov when scoring a goal in the third period — all the more risky. Granted, the Jets got a bit of love from the hockey gods, as a TV timeout after the goal allowed Prefontaine to take more time than usual to review the play.
“There are a bunch of different angles you have to look at,” Arniel said. “That one, (specifically), the above (angle) wasn’t really helping us because the referee had mentioned that it was interference on the goalie before the puck hit the goalie but it wasn’t after we saw what we needed…. we didn’t know that was the call. The referee did tell us it was goaltender interference prior to the puck hitting the goalie and once we saw all the video, it wasn’t. We felt pretty confident that we were going to move forward.”
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Although they may not earn seven-figure salaries or have the type of notoriety that other members of the coaching staff do, video coaches are on the front lines of the team’s game-planning. Prefontaine and Cochrane shoulder a tireless workload in an industry where work-life balance is already nonexistent. Before games, they’re preparing pre-scout reports on opponents — going as far back as the last four games to get a good read on the team and then divvying up the game footage for the coaches. During the game, they monitor every single zone entry for offside, every puck touch for a high-stick, all the while tracking analytics and system trends to relay to the coaching staff during intermission.
On Tuesday, their around-the-clock efforts paid off.
Power play comes in waves
Lately, Winnipeg’s power play prowess has extended beyond their first unit.
The team’s second unit — which consists of Niederreiter, Cole Perfetti, Vladislav Namestnikov, Alex Iafallo and Neal Pionk — has scored four goals over the last three games. Two of which came on Thursday via Niederreiter and Pionk.
“Our first unit is elite, it’s a lot of great players making great passes. It definitely looks a lot prettier than what we do,” Niederreiter said. “We definitely have the mindset of getting pucks to the net and creating some chances that way.”
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The numbers back that up, with the second unit combining for four goals, six shots and seven chances over the last three games.
That bump in production is a direct result of them becoming more assertive, as was the case on Niederreiter’s power play marker with 41.1 seconds remaining in the first period. It wasn’t your typical tic-tac-toe goal but rather an entry play that created an odd-man situation and allowed Iafallo to feed a wide-open Niederreiter for a one-timer.
“Nino got a great pass (from Iafallo). The mindset is that if it’s a faceoff, we’re attacking, if it’s an entry, we’re trying to attack,” Arniel explained. “Once you get set, then you’re sort of going into the sequence. That group, they all can make plays and that’s what you’re seeing. I like that their mindset is to attack and that’s what they did off that entry.”
In an era where second power play units are becoming somewhat extinct, the Jets have found a way to carve out a second layer on the man advantage. And that’s a big reason why their power play, as a whole, is on pace to post historic results.
