Jets Takeaways: Kyle Connor demonstrates all-around elite talent
Sometimes, elite offensive talents are susceptible to cheating defensively when they’re down bad. But not Kyle Connor. At least, not this version of him.
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Boy, did Kyle Connor ever need that one.
Entering Thursday’s tilt with the Philadelphia Flyers, the Winnipeg Jets star winger was snake bitten with just one goal to show for over his last nine games.
Sometimes, elite offensive talents are susceptible to cheating defensively when they’re down bad like that. But not Connor. At least not this version of him.
Connor has silenced skeptics of his 200-foot game this season, leveraging his high-end motor and elite instincts to become a more consistent, well-rounded player — all-the-while scoring at a 102-point pace.
And his attentiveness in the defensive zone played a huge role in him scoring a glorious goal to put the Jets up 3-0 in the second period.
As Neal Pionk went to retrieve a rimmed puck along the boards, Connor made himself available as an outlet down low. After receiving a quick pass from Pionk, Connor one-touch deked a Flyers forechecker before dishing the puck off to Gabriel Vilardi and darting down the ice.
Moments later, Mark Scheifele would find a soaring Connor in transition and from there, it was vintage ‘KC’. A perfectly placed wrister that was rifled between Samuel Erson’s blocker and pad.
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Even after all the goals he’s scored as a Jet, Connor’s release never ceases to amaze those that see it everyday.
“I think it’s his (underrated) strength, his forearm strength, that he really can just fire that thing off really quickly,” Eric Comrie told reporters after his 21-save win. “He can snap it off.”
While this market is no stranger to world-class snipers, we haven’t seen a player that can score at will — in a plethora of different ways — like Connor in a long, long time. Patrik Laine was just as much a one-trick pony as he was a human highlight reel.
Connor’s the ultimate package.
“He makes so many great passes, so many great reads. He’s absolutely fantastic to play with,” Scheifele said.
There’s often a misconception about wingers, that they can’t drive a team like a centre or defenceman can. And in turn, we hardly give enough props to the select few wingers that can score at will, and don’t cheat the game, like Connor.
“Those guys, that’s one thing they don’t stop doing, they don’t stop shooting and put themselves in a position,” Arniel told reporters. “I talked to you guys this morning about, when it isn’t going in, don’t get away from the net, get closer to the net and that’s what KC did tonight. He had some real good looks from the inside.”
In today’s NHL, there are a select few wingers that qualify as ‘franchise’ talents and Connor is certainly one of them.
His combination of elite shooting and skating ability — according to NHL Edge, Connor ranks in the 99th percentile in total skating distance this season (344.7 KMH) — is hard to find.
And his production speaks for itself. Since the 2019-20 season, only Auston Matthews, David Pastrnak and Connor McDavid have scored more even-strength goals than him (153).
And you can bet on his next AAV being in the double digits.
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Stoller Says
• There’s no need to panic about the Jets power play. They were bound to rebound and the two goals they scored — the net front goal by Scheifele and Nikolaj Ehlers’ finish on a tic-tac-toe — were a direct result of what’s made them so lethal all year. And they never veered from their structure, even when they weren’t getting the bounces.
“We actually went back, we’re looking at the numbers and the chances and the opportunities — they were still high [but] they weren’t going in,” Arniel said. “Like I talked about, this sort of stretch, we’re doing a lot of good things, and that’s what I like, the fact that we just continue to stay with the attack. The things that we stress, the attack, the retrievals, the support, and Scheif’s first goal was a great example of that.”
• Cole Perfetti may be pointless in his last four games but he’s gradually evolving into a legitimate top-six winger. The 23-year-old finished the night with five scoring chances — many of which were Grade-A’s — and won several puck battles against a heavy Flyers blueline. He’s a driver, not a passenger, on that line now.
• Logan Stanley has played better recently, by his standards, but this game was yet another example as to why he can’t be in your playoff lineup. He may be six-foot-seven but Stanley struggles mightily to check effectively, or at all, for someone his size. And that’s supposedly his calling card.
