Anytime you ask Mark Scheifele about a goal he scored, he always begins his answer with a caveat.
That he’s a pass-first player.
While that may be true — he is indeed one of the best passers in the sport — it sells his goal-scoring ability short.
After scoring the game-winning goal Tuesday — where the Winnipeg Jets defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 — Scheifele sits tied for the second most goals in the league (29).
Joining him in a three-way tie for second is Sam Reinhart and his running mate, Kyle Connor. When asked after the game if there’s a bit of healthy competition between him and the latter, Scheifele answered as you’d expect.
“I’d like to have a lot more assists right now. I think I’d love for him to have more than me,” Scheifele told reporters. “I pride myself on my passing. I think I have more goals than I do assists right now, so I’ve got to set him up for a few more in the future.”
For a while, this mindset held him back. In previous years, Scheifele — a three-time 30-plus goal scorer who scored a career-high 42 goals in 2022-23 — would oftentimes defer to a teammate even when he had a clear lane to the net. He’s got a knack for holding onto pucks along the wall, creating deception and firing off the perfect pass. Oftentimes, he’d elect to do that instead of cutting into the home plate area and firing off a shot himself — even when he had the time and space to do it.
This year, though, Scheifele has been a heck of a lot more assertive. And overall, hungrier to score.
What you saw on the game-winning goal — where he darted to the low slot and smacked home a pass from Gabriel Vilardi right above the blue paint — was a prime example of that. He’s not just scoring all these goals from breakaways or slick dekes against the goalie in-tight.
“He’s getting inside to get these looks,” Scott Arniel said after Winnipeg beat Seattle on Jan. 16. “It’s different if you’re standing outside the dots and trying to take one-timers from there. They’re probably not going in. But he does a fantastic job of getting himself into scoring areas. I think he realizes that it’s not just his linemates that need to score. When he has a chance, he has to take those shots, too.”
According to NaturalStatTrick.com, Scheifele has recorded 4.47 five-on-five high-danger shot attempts per 60 minutes this season — placing him in the 91st percentile among forwards (minimum 200 minutes). According to NHL Edge, 16 of his 28 goals have come from high-danger areas.
Amidst all the talk of him playing a more refined 200-foot game this season, that Scheifele has adapted his pursuit of offence is arguably more crucial. Scoring more of these greasy goals has been the reason he’s even in the Rocket Richard conversation.
And it’s played a big part in the Jets’ top line becoming one of the NHL’s most lethal trios.
Where do you park the Gus Bus?
It’s beyond the four-game point streak.
Over the last little while, the 25-year-old centre has started to look closer to what many thought he’d become — a defensively responsible bottom-six centre who can contribute off the cycle.
His forechecking efforts on Connor’s second goal — where he picked up a primary assist after winning a battle along the wall and feeding Connor net front — was the type of sequence that makes coaches salivate.
“When we’re on our game, our forecheck is one of our strengths,” Arniel said. “We hem teams in, we get in and turn pucks over. And that was a great example.”
One perceived benefit of the Jets acquiring a second-line centre at the deadline is that it bumps a guy like Vladislav Namestnikov down to a fourth-line role. And while Namestnikov would be far more efficient if he were shouldering a lighter workload, isn’t Gustafsson the archetype of a prototypical fourth-line centre?
Gustafson’s won 51.8 per cent of his draws this year, posted superb on-ice shot metrics — with the Jets controlling 59.1 per cent of the five-on-five expected goals share when he’s on the ice — and his instincts are off the charts.
The 2018 second-round pick isn’t getting any better by sitting in the press box, either.
