Jett Woo has been a top-pairing defenceman for Abbotsford all season and has come into his own over the last few years with the club.
In his fourth year in the AHL, Woo feels the confidence in his game has really grown over the past year. He knows what he needs to do to have success and proves himself right, getting positive results from his hard work.
Setting goals is important to him and Woo has set a standard for himself in practices and games that help him stay consistent. He’s also enjoying every step in the process and is having fun with his teammates.
“I feel like I've been playing well both offensively and defensively, I’ve been defending strong, and having smart hits,” Woo said. “It's never really my goal to score a bunch of points but I've been doing pretty well [this season].”
Through 25 games, Woo has 11 points (3-8-11) and his blueline partner, Christian Wolanin, has 18 points (2-16-18) through 22 games. The two have different styles that complement each other and in their second season together they’re firing on all cylinders.
“I think for me personally, it's just to keep it simple, be hard to play against and just move pucks,” Woo said. “I think Woly [Wolanin] and I play pretty good together, we've been doing that for a little while now and we’ve got that chemistry. I think we both know what the coaches and team expect of us. It makes it pretty easy for us to go out there every night and play with consistency.”
The Abbotsford coaching staff also know what to expect from him on a nightly basis. Head Coach Jeremy Colliton says Woo has a number of valuable skills in his toolkit as he works towards taking the next step.
“His ability to close quick whether it's up ice, in the neutral zone, shutting down rushes, or closing quick in the defensive zone to get stops and get us out,” Colliton said, adding why he thinks Woo and Wolanin are such a great defensive pairing. “He can help Wolanin get out of the d-zone and then obviously put Woly in a position where he can jump up and really help us and transition. They really fit well together. Woozi's such a good skater and he knows how to use his skating to get body position which makes him a really good defender.”
He’s fine-tuning this season; keeping track of the smaller details of his game to measure his improvement. He’s tallying his blocked shots on the PK and five-on-five, shot totals, average shots per game and his exits out of the zone percentage.
He used to focus on playing well away from the puck, and going hand in hand with watching his zone exits and shot totals, he’s leaning into developing more creativity with the puck on his stick.
“I’m working on what I'm doing with the puck. A lot of times I was trying to space myself out and be smart away from the puck, but now I'm getting more touches, I’m on the puck a little bit more and learning to do more with it,” Woo said, also mentioning he’s been working on playing more minutes and being able to defend on both sides of the ice.
Woo scored the go-ahead goal against the Ontario Reign on December 20th, helping the Canucks in the 5-2 win and earning the hatchet (team MVP) for the game.
