Habs too much to handle

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/11/2014 (4226 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MONTREAL — On this track, the Winnipeg Jets were bound to go off the rails sooner or later.

Their streak of 6-0-2, now gone with Tuesday’s 3-0 setback against the Montreal Canadiens, has been marked with excellent defence and goaltending and marginal offence.

Like just 15 goals worth in the eight games. And in that span, effectively six of the games were 2-1 or 1-0.

Remarkably, the Jets have now been shut out four times this season — though they squeezed out a win in one of those by winning a shootout — and still hold a record above .500, now 8-6-2.

“I think defensively we were OK,” Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec said after allowing two goals. The other was Tomas Plekanec’s empty-netter late. “I think it’s only a matter of time and we’ll start to score the goals. But the penalty kill was great. We didn’t give them much.”

The defeat cost the Jets a chance to match the franchise record for consecutive games with at least a point, 6-0-3 set by the 2005-06 Atlanta Thrashers.

“It’s been a while (since we lost),” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “So nobody’s in a very good mood back there, which is good. You don’t like to get comfortable with that. There are parts of our game that can get better, parts that are real good. It’s a 1-0 game through the majority of it.

“All was not perfect in this world before the game and all is not lost after it.”

 

Had their way

The Jets had their way with this game, sort of, but couldn’t work their recent magic.

It was 1-0 favouring the Habs heading to the third and there wasn’t much wide-open play.

Overall, the Jets permitted 27 shots on goal, below their season average.

“It’s a loss and you’re stinging and you’re grumpy,” Maurice said. “That’s probably the way a loss should look. You’re on the road, it’s a tight game, you’re getting some chances. You stay with it and it doesn’t go for you and you move on to the next town.

“Certainly we didn’t dominate the game and we absolutely feel they didn’t either. It was just tight.”

 

Another hot one

Winnipeg has faced some hot netminders in the season’s early going.

Pekka Rinne shut them out early. Cory Schneider and Henrik Lundqvist had their numbers on the last road trip. Marc-Andre Fleury was great against them at home last week and Craig Anderson was really sharp in Ottawa last Saturday.

Add Carey Price to the list.

He handled all 29 shots on goal the Jets had on Tuesday.

“I think Carey Price is an exceptional goalie and I though we generated some chances,” said Jets centre Adam Lowry, who missed the net on a glorious third-period look. “It’s just a matter of hitting the net and hitting our spots. We’re putting a lot of pucks to the net and we’re generating a lot off the cycle, but it’s a matter of beating the goalie with that shot or getting second and third opportunities where we can get a few past him.”

“We’ve had a pretty good run of goaltending against us, but these are things you can work on,” Maurice said.

 

Last gasp

Maurice opted to pull Pavelec for an extra attacker with 3:10 left in the third.

It looked promising for a while, with good puck control and then a foolish Montreal penalty by Jiri Sekac, but during the late pressure, Evander Kane hit the post and missed a wide-open net and Bryan Little was stoned by Price.

The Jets eventually mismanaged the puck in trying to gain the zone and handed the Habs an empty-netter by Plekanec with 36.7 seconds left.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

 

Note: Can't see the live-coverage box on this page? View it in a new window.