Jets having tough time with late-game goals

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This article was published 18/01/2015 (3946 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you’re the nervous type and you really must insist on nit-picking the Winnipeg Jets over the last month, then you won’t sleep well knowing the Jets have not been the steadiest NHL team with a third-period lead.

In an all-things-equal circumstance — no injuries, no travel or schedule issues, no fatigue — there would be reason to worry the team has seen the Philadelphia Flyers, Minnesota Wild, Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks and now the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday take points from the Jets with late surges.

And you can factor in a late-game tie game forged with the San Jose Sharks earlier this month that the Sharks snatched with five seconds left in regulation time.

But the Jets, a perennial out-of-the-playoffs team including as the Atlanta Thrashers, simply point to their current record of 25-14-8 and say they’re simply figuring things out as they go along.

“It’s definitely better to play with the lead,” Jets left-winger Evander Kane pointed out Sunday after his team watched a 3-1 third-period lead evaporate into a shootout game, which eventually went their way. “That’s what good teams are able to do, play with the lead.

“To come back and make sure we got that extra point was good. Obviously we didn’t want to have to go that far but giving up leads, that’s going to happen. It’s all about how you handle it. We did a pretty good job of rallying around. They had some power-play opportunities that got them going and we did our best to kill them off.”

For the record, the Jets are 18-1-5 when taking a lead to the third period this season. The “5” may be a little disconcerting, but the fact they’ve been leading after 40 minutes in more than half their games, and tied in nine others (7-2-0) isn’t really all that terrible.

“We didn’t make it easy on ourselves, getting into some penalty trouble at the end but that’s an area we’ve been pretty good at this year, holding leads and playing a good third period,” said Jets centre Bryan Little, the hero with a goal plus the shootout winner. “Tonight we let it slip a bit but still feels good to get both those points.

“We’d rather not win that way, giving up leads, but we’re still managing to get wins, still managing to stick with it. It’s definitely one area we could get better at right now.”

Jets coach Paul Maurice wasn’t into analyzing a single thing about how Sunday’s game unfolded.

He simply said his team was finishing a seven-game assignment in 11 days and that the “real” Jets weren’t necessarily on the ice Sunday.

“I wouldn’t take one aspect of tonight’s game and say it’s a trend for either team,” he said.

He especially included a pond-hockey stretch of four-on-four in the third period that produced Winnipeg’s 3-1 goal by Dustin Byfuglien.

Nor was he willing to criticize Byfuglien for a mini-tantrum unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty with 1:35 left in regulation time — a call that likely wouldn’t have been made by some thicker-skinned referees.

“I’m going to put that in the rest of the basket,” Maurice said. “You can’t separate one from the herd here. There was a whole host of unusual things that happened in that game tonight… I’m leaving that game where it is.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.c