Jets crash and burn in loss to Panthers

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This article was published 09/11/2011 (5081 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets crashed and burned in front of a home audience Thursday night. And the head coach, left to sift through the wreckage after a dreadful performance in a 5-2 loss to the Florida Panthers, is spitting mad about it.

Normally an effusive and thoughtful sort win or lose, Claude Noel was succinct in assessing his team’s work against the Panthers in a post-game dissection with the media that lasted just over two minutes.

“I didn’t enjoy the game,” Noel began. “We played poor for a good portion of the game. A lot of it was a lack of intensity.

“We didn’t have many good players. We were better in the third, but we didn’t deserve to win the game.

“We were not good from the goaltender out, what do you want me to say?”
Actually, that just about sums it up perfectly.

The Jets, returning home from a season-long road trip that saw them compile a respectable 3-2-2 record, had jump in the first shift of the game but precious little through the remaining portion of first two periods.

Kris Versteeg, who finished the night with a hat trick, scored the first two goals and Florida built a 4-0 lead after 40 minutes after Jason Garrison and Mike Santorelli also beat Jets’ goaltender Ondrej Pavelec.

Peter Mannino replaced Pavelec in the third and the Jets inched closer on goals by Tim Stapleton and Andrew Ladd, but Versteeg deposited his third, and eighth of the season, into an empty net.
And this stat is rather telling: Winnipeg registered the first four shots of the game, but didn’t hit the net again over the next 23 minutes and 27 seconds.

“We played five minutes in the first period and we played 20 in the third,” said Noel. “What went wrong? We didn’t play very well. You’re not going to win if your players don’t play to their potential. We had very few good players in the first period and very few in the second. What did we have 10 shots after two periods?

“There was a game plan in place. I thought we would be better and we weren’t. We wanted to be physical. We wanted to use speed. They got on the board early, they sat back and we watched them play. We turned pucks over… we did all the things we didn’t need to do.”

Asked if the team was tired after the long road trip, Noel added:

“We’re not. That’s a bad excuse. And that’s where it needs to sit. It was a poor performance by our players. That’s it. If you can play 20, you can play 60. It was poor and it was all because of lack of intensity. That simple. That controls our decisions and our decisions were poor. If you watched our first two periods our decisions were poor. Turnovers… not physical… turning on players… poor.”
In the end the Jets out-shot the Panthers 27-20, 17 coming in the third period, but fell to 5-8-3 on the season. Florida improved to 8-4-3.

“(The Jets) sure didn’t look like they came home from a (long) road trip in the first five minutes,” said Panthers head coach Kevin Dineen. “They came out with a ton of energy and they really came at us hard, and we absorbed that and then we score that first goal and then the game kind of settles down. I liked our game from then on. They did the same thing, and we were ready for what they did in the third period, and you’ve got to give them credit, they pushed hard, and I liked our response to that push. I just liked our overall game tonight.”

Winnipeg now heads to Columbus for a date with the Blue Jackets on Saturday night (6 p.m., CBC/TSN Sports Radio).

“The third period… that’s the way we need to play,” said captain Andrew Ladd. “We need to skate, we need to get in team’s faces, create turnovers and when we do that we’re a good team.

“The first 40 minutes we weren’t skating. We sat around and watched. They’re a fast team that likes to play an up-tempo game and we just stood around and watched.”

Ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @WFPEdTait

<a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=e471f28750″ >Jets host Panthers, Nov. 10, 2011</a>

Game preview

Winnipeg is coming off a seven-game road trip in which it collected eight points (3-2-2). The team won just two of the seven games it played and collected the other in a shootout, and added two more losses in overtime.

"It feels like a home game," head coach Claude Noel said this morning. "Yes it does. Thirteen days on the road and we’re going to come back and hopefully we can get some love from the fans and give some in return."

The Jets are 2-2 on home ice so far.

After Tuesday’s 6-5 overtime loss in Buffalo, the Jets returned right after the game and took Wednesday off. After tonight’s game, they are right back on the road for a Saturday night Hockey Night in Canada game in Columbus.

"It’s nice to be home but after the Columbus game, it’ll be nicer to be home for a week," said Jets centre Bryan Little.

"It’s been gone for two weeks, home for two days, gone again and you wish you were home longer. Yesterday I was running all over the place getting mailbox keys, stuff for the house, running errands for four hours."

Meanwhile, Winkler native Eric Fehr is out of a red jersey for the first time this season.

Fehr is recovering from shoulder surgery and has not had contact to date. Fehr will need to engage in contact at practice before being cleared for game action.

Also this morning, the Jets learned that they have lost forward Ben Maxwell on a waiver claim to the Anaheim Ducks. Maxwell, who was placed on waivers Wednesday, had played four games without a point.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Join us for our live blog of the Jets home game against the Florida Panthers on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

— with file from Gary Lawless