Game a whole lotto nothing

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This article was published 31/03/2016 (3477 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Neither the players nor their teams intend to make any game a nothing game, but such was the plight of the Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets Wednesday night at the MTS Centre.

The Jets were long ago banished from playoff talk and added to their wholly disappointing record (now 31-39-7) by losing 2-1 to the Senators.

For those focused only on the bottom of the NHL standings, the defeat stalled the Jets at 69 points, only two off the league’s bottom rung and the best odds for the draft lottery.

The Sens, on the other hand, have slowly drifted away from the pack in the Eastern Conference and despite winning to get to 79 points, were officially vanquished from the race about 30 minutes after the game’s finish when the Philadelphia Flyers prevailed in a shootout over Washington.

Wednesday’s game was decided on a gaffe by Winnipeg’s Ben Chiarot behind his own goal.

He lost control of the puck, which was picked up by Ryan Dzingel of Ottawa, who got it to until-that-point-unnoticeable Alex Chiasson, who had no trouble beating Jets goalie Michael Hutchinson with 11:09 to play.

“I went to wheel the net, turn up ice and the puck just flipped up over my stick,” Chiarot said. “Just lost control of it and bang-bang, it’s in the back of the net.

“It’s something that can’t happen, especially late in the third period like that. That’s a tough one to swallow. It’s a play you make 50 times during a game.”

❚ Buff-dozer: The lacking kind of game Wednesday — the shots were 21-19 for the Jets — did not apply to Jets defenceman Dustin Byfuglien, the best player by far.

Not only was Byfuglien involved in the game, he unloaded another of his thunderous and violent hits.

This time the victim was Ottawa’s Mark Stone in the neutral zone near the penalty box at 11:59 of the second.

Stone left the ice under his own power, returned to play a few shifts later in the period and then was absent for the third with what Ottawa was calling a chest injury.

“You just don’t see those very often,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said of the check. “It’s clean and it’s so hard that you’re wondering how a guy can come back from it. But he did. So good for him.”

Offered Hutchinson: “That’s probably the biggest hit I’ve ever seen in person. You could just hear it.”

Of course the hit caused the Senators to froth for revenge.

Zack Smith was first into the fray and was penalized. Jean-Gabriel Pageau also tried to get at Byfuglien — was that an officiating mistake to have held him back? — and Pageau tried it again at the final horn after Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba dropped Chiasson in the neutral zone.

All Pageau got for his bravery (foolishness?) was a couple of stiff gloves to the face.

❚ Dullsville: Maurice said after the game his team just didn’t have the required zip, apart from Byfuglien, of course, and a multiple-minute push that tied the game briefly in the third period.

“I won’t spend a lot of time on Ben Chiarot’s fumble,” Maurice said. “There were fumbles all over the ice. We’re lacking a bit of the 60-minute drive, the execution with the puck and just some of the sharpness.

“We’ll go back an evaluate it more individually, players, how they handled certain things and where they can get better. I think we’re dealing with some fatigue, mental and physical. It’s not an excuse, it’s a fact.”

Maurice is giving his team today off.

❚ Streaks extended: When Mark Scheifele tied the game at 6:55 of the third after a great pass from Blake Wheeler, both men extended points streaks.

Scheifele is now at a five-game run, 3-4-7, while Wheeler is at a six-game streak, 2-5-7 heading into Friday’s home contest against Chicago.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

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