Ryan Getzlaf leads Anaheim Ducks in 4-1 win over Winnipeg Jets

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/12/2014 (4015 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Anaheim Ducks are the NHL’s elite team at the moment. They lead the league, and not by illusion.

Help they do not need. But help they got in the second period of Saturday’s game at the MTS Centre, key in their eventual 4-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets.

The game was 1-1 on an exchange of power-play goals when Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf took possession of a turned-over puck, skated in and whistled it home off the far post.

It was a fine shot, but one Jets goalie Michael Hutchinson didn’t have a chance to stop because Ducks’ forward Tim Jackman rubbed him sideways while Hutchinson still had both feet in the blue paint of the goal crease.

The eventual winning goal stood, as referees Kevin Pollock and Brad Meier overlooked the bump.

And later in the second, Hutchinson contributed to a dagger against his own team, mishandling the puck just enough to shove it into teammate Dustin Byfuglien’s feet as he tried to collect it and restart a power-play rush.

The Ducks, shorthanded at the time, pounced. Getzlaf stole the puck easily from Byfuglien and sent it to unchecked Nate Thompson in front for a 3-1 score.

All of that assistance was plenty to lead the visitors to a seventh straight victory and to 47 points, looking down at 29 rivals.

 On deaf ears

Hutchinson didn’t find any sympathy — or clear vision — from officials on Jackman’s interference in the crease.

“He thought I was out a little bit far out of my net and their guy was trying to get position in front of me,” the goalie reported later. “So, that was his view. The other ref didn’t see it at all, he was looking at something else on the play. It’s one of those things. He told me he was going to look at it on video. There’s nothing you can do about it after it goes in.

“Getzlaf came in and made a good shot. So, whether I make that save or not, as a goalie you just like having that opportunity to make that save. I felt like their player impeded my chance at making that save.”

Jets coach Paul Maurice gave a stone-cold, quick answer to that after the game.

““He bumped the goalie but the guy didn’t see it the same way I did, so it didn’t matter,” the coach said.

 

Another eight-gamer ends

The Jets failed to convert a second eight-game point streak this season into tying the franchise record of nine, accomplished in 2005.

They entered the game 5-0-3 in the last eight. In early November, Winnipeg had a 6-0-2 run going into Montreal but lost 3-0.

Trailers

Part and parcel of the end of Winnipeg’s streak was a situation the Jets haven’t seen in some time.

Once Thompson scored to make it 3-1, the Jets were down by two goals. Discounting a late-game empty-net goal by St. Louis here on Nov. 23, it was 27 days (back to Nov. 16 in Minnesota) in which the Jets trailed by two or more goals during the thick of any game.

Not their best

The Ducks are winning for a reason, the Jets agreed after Saturday’s result.

It involves skating and plays at high speed, leaving little time for decisions.

“They play a game that in a lot of ways we’re trying to model after,” Maurice said. “They’ve got a lot of guys that skate very well but the strength of their team is how hard they are on pucks.

“The difference in the game is there’s very little indecision in their game. And it doesn’t take much for it to look like there’s indecision in our game against a team with that kind of speed.”

Said Jets centre Bryan Little, who scored his 12th of the season in the first period: “We didn’t keep that pace up. We didn’t go as best we could. We weren’t bad tonight but we weren’t where we needed to be.”

Jets winger Blake Wheeler said his team can do better than it did on Saturday.

“I think we just gave them a little too much respect,” Wheeler said. “Our gap was a little bit looser than it probably is, and they’re a good-skating team. They do a lot of things that we do.

“They just did them a little better tonight.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca