Jets host Boston on October 3 with a paper-thin lineup
Heard something from a buddy who's got a cousin on the equipment staff up there 😏 word is they'll roll out basically the kids plus whoever's left standing in the room, four-line shape with a shortened D rotation, nothing fancy. Won't say more than that, you know the rest.
Makes sense though - 26th place, 82 points, that 231-260 differential doesn't lie about the state of the roster. Boston's coming in with 100 points and 272 goals for, so if the Jets try to trade chances it'll get ugly fast. I'd rather see them pack the middle and hope for a low-event night, honestly. Who plays goal is the real question, but that part nobody's whispered yet 🤫
Solid source, details in the DMs.
Steve, if your buddy's cousin is right, that four-line shape with a shortened D rotation is exactly what the numbers force you into anyway. When you're 26th with a minus-29 goal differential and Boston walks in with 272 scored, you can't win a track meet, so diluting minutes across four lines at least keeps the kids from drowning against a top-eight side.
Where I'd push back slightly: shortened D rotation worries me more than the forward shape. Against a team that generates 272 goals' worth of pressure, tired pairings bleed chances in the third. If they're really going short on the blue line, the key zones become the two pairing slots that see Boston's top line, those minutes decide the game, everything else is filler. Context matters here: it's the home opener, October 3, and a respectable structural loss beats a 6-2 blowout you're still talking about in November. Depending how you count it, I'd rather see the young D sheltered than fed to the wolves 📊
Do the math before you argue.
And which D pairs survive a shortened rotation against 272 goals? RideOrDie, you're diluting minutes like the depth exists. Name me the six healthy defenders first. A cousin on the equipment staff isn't a lineup, show me the roster before we anoint the kids.
RideOrDie has a point tbh, you can't run 6D against Boston's 272 goals with a bunch of kids 😱 but Fanatic_Life is right, show us the roster first... 🤬
On the terraces since I was a kid.
Good question actually, KevArmy, don't apologize for asking.
A shortened D rotation means instead of carrying six healthy defencemen and spreading the ice time evenly, you lean hard on your top four, your best pair gets 24-26 minutes a night, your second pair gets 20-22, and the third pair sits around 12-14, mostly killing penalties and hiding against soft competition. The coach basically shrinks the rotation because he trusts four bodies more than six. It's common when a team is missing a guy or two, which sounds like exactly the situation Steve's describing in Winnipeg.
The catch for the October 3 game against Boston: you're asking those four defenders to contain a team that scored 272 goals last season, every second shift. A kid sitting at 14 minutes can't log 22, his legs go by the second period and the turnovers start.
I keep my own tables 📊
Worth adding that the wear compounds fast. A top pair eating 26 minutes against Boston's forecheck on October 3, then Anaheim on the 10th and Minnesota on the 14th with no recovery days in between, that's where you see the mistakes creep in by the third period. And context matters: one game of stretched minutes tells you almost nothing about whether the kids can handle it, small sample though it'll be, so I'd rather see them sheltered at home ice than thrown to the Bruins' 272-goal offence cold.
Context beats a bare stat.
Zoe that makes sense, thanks 🙏 Third-period legs against a forecheck like Boston's sounds rough. So the kids basically only see sheltered minutes? 😅
Metric_Dan, sheltered minutes yes, but here's the part people miss, sheltering only works if you actually have a bottom pair to hide them behind. Winnipeg is carrying a paper-thin group here, so the "third pair" might be two kids learning on the job. That 231-260 goal differential didn't come from nowhere, and the sample isn't small: 35 wins and 35 losses over a full 82 says this roster lives at .500 at best when healthy. Strip pieces out and the bottom six of the blue line gets exposed fast against a Boston team that put 272 in the net this year.
What I'd actually watch on October 3 is how the shift chart looks after the first ten minutes. If the top pair is already over seven minutes of ice time, the coach has made his choice. He's riding them and hiding the kids wherever Boston's fourth line is on the ice. 📊 My spreadsheet from years of watching these opener lineups says the tell is faceoff deployment: watch who takes the draws in the defensive zone.
I keep my own tables 📊
Gary that hits home honestly 😅 I worked a Bruins fans table at my coffee shop last playoffs, they talk trash even before their second double-double. Still learning this stuff but hiding kids behind another kid sounds brutal.
met a few rebuilds like this one, and honest answer? the lineup writes itself, kids get the soft matchups, one veteran pair soaks up Boston's forecheck, and the manager crosses his fingers 😄 only surprise I'd expect is him double-shifting somebody down the middle, which worked for nobody back in the day either. watch as long as I have and you'll get it: October 3 against a 100-point club is about keeping the scoreboard respectable, the table position takes care of itself later. curious though, does anyone here think they steal a point anyway?
Remember when the grass was greener 🌱