Jets off key in Music City

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This article was published 15/11/2014 (3976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The key play at the right time just wasn’t there Saturday night, and given a Winnipeg Jets’ style that leaves so little margin for error, their 2-1 loss to the Nashville Predators was the kind of result that will come along.

A tight, at-times dreary sort of game in Bridgestone Arena was decided by a Jets’ mistake with just more than two minutes to play, handing Nashville’s Craig Smith a short shot at an open net that he didn’t miss.

The victory pushed the Predators to 24 points in the Central Division, four more than the Jets.

Nashville has won two of the three head-to-head contests played already this season.

Winnipeg, 9-7-2, will have little time to sulk about getting no points on Saturday.

The team moves on to St. Paul, Minn., today to meet the Wild (4 p.m., TSN3, TSN 1290), wrapping up their five-game road trip (2-2-0 so far) and their taxing span of nine of 11 games on the road (6-2-2 so far).

“Tough loss,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said. “It was the game we expected. It was played the way we thought it would be.

“Tough to give up a goal late. We had been real solid, real strong there. Our third period, we were better in a lot of areas and had some good chances there, but there just weren’t a whole lot to go around in that game tonight.”

“We know how they play,” said Preds coach Peter Laviolette, who recorded his 400th NHL-coaching victory. “It was hard to just get shots on goal and hard to get in front of the net.”

The gift that gave

The game appeared headed to extra time when Jets defenceman Jacob Trouba blocked a shot in front of his goalie, Ondrej Pavelec. When Trouba tried to move the puck forward, he partially whiffed on the attempt and it went straight to Preds’ Calle Jankrok.

Jankrok had the presence of mind to move it quickly to his left, where Smith was standing alone with a good view of the open side, and his sixth goal of the season at 17:58 of the third was all she wrote.

“I didn’t see it, pretty much,” Pavelec said. “There were a lot of bodies in front. We blocked it right to the guy’s stick and it’s easy for him.”

Neal’s night

James Neal tied the game at 15:45 of the second with a nasty one-timer from about 30 feet.

It came from a faceoff play outside their blue-line that the Jets fumbled. That puck drop was the result of Neal’s high stick that caused an apparent Preds goal to be disallowed just eight second earlier.

Neal, in fact, was fortunate he didn’t receive a penalty on that play, having belted Jets’ defenceman Toby Enstrom in the side of the head with a high stick.

PK excels

Winnipeg’s penalty killing was another installment of excellence on this night, not only nullifying four Nashville power plays but producing the team’s only goal early in the second period.

Evander Kane and Blake Wheeler confused the Predators’ breakout, handled badly by Seth Jones and Matt Cullen, with Wheeler snatching the loose puck in the neutral zone and moving in on Pekka Rinne for a hard shot into the short side of the net.

“Penalty killing has been pretty darn good the whole year and any time we have a penalty to kill, no matter what the situation, I think we feel confident we can kill it,” Kane said.

The Jets are top five in the NHL at 88.2 per cent.

“Part of the reason we’ve won more than we’ve lost,” Maurice added.

Pav again?

Maurice wasn’t all that interested in the question or conversation with reporters after Saturday’s game, but has left the door open to play Pavelec again today in the back-to-back situation in Minnesota.

“I’ll make that decision tomorrow, but we’ll look at it,” the coach said.

“Yeah, why not?” Pavelec said, sounding eager to play again after facing 29 shots on Saturday night.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

 

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