Tough break — shake it off

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/03/2015 (3838 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The echo of the final horn and the curses of the fans were still echoing through the MTS Centre when Ondrej Pavelec made his way to the Winnipeg Jets’ bench and violently swung his stick into the boards in the picture of absolute frustration.

Blake Wheeler did one better seconds later, smashing his own stick into pieces, then flinging the shaft toward the empty Jets net.

If any one scene best described all the emotion that enveloped the Jets’ 76th game of the 2014-15 season, it was actually the moment that came after the Chicago Blackhawks exited with a 4-3 victory that, like so many of late, had all the intensity of late-April playoff hockey.

But it’s what comes next that will determine if there is actually any playoff hockey in downtown Winnipeg and ultimately define this edition of the Jets.

Yes, it’s true: The hockey gods did the locals no favours Sunday night, watching the Jets build a 3-2 lead before ripping their collective hearts out of their chests late in the third period. It’s one thing to have the linesman and Toby Enstrom run in to each other, the Jets defenceman losing his stick in the process, just as Patrick Sharp scooped up a loose puck and rifled the tying goal past Pavelec.

But to have the Hawks win it — on a nifty tip by native son Jonathan Toews, no less — with 30.8 seconds left hurts like a 1,000 bee stings for a club that has been all-in on its pursuit for a playoff spot for weeks/months now.

“I was pretty happy with our game and the way we played. I thought we did a lot of things that we wanted to do, had chances, had the lead… we have pressure, we did a lot of good things. It’s tough,” said Jets captain Andrew Ladd afterward.

“(The play on the Sharp goal) is a tough one to take. We’re battling for our playoff lives and something like that happens, it’s always tough to give up the tying goal on that play. At the same time, it’s still a 3-3 hockey game late in the third period and we’ve got to find a way to take that thing at least to overtime.”

B-I-N-G-O. Bingo.

Look, the Jets awoke this morning still clinging to the final Western Conference wild-card spot with six games left in their season. And so what happens next is very much up to them. Good teams make their own breaks. Good teams get up off the mat when they take a roundhouse below the belt. That’s where the Jets are right now, with the New York Rangers here Tuesday followed by the Vancouver Canucks on the weekend and the final four after that.

Understandably, there were a lot of short answers in the Jets locker-room after this one. The players requested by the media to do interviews afterward stomped into dressing room with all the joy of someone about to undergo a colonoscopy.

That anger is understandable. Channelling that into something Tuesday is even more important.

“I don’t know if it’s ever easy to bounce back, especially when you play well,” said Ladd. “Like I said, I thought we did a lot of good things tonight and to not to come out on top hurts, especially at this time of year. Speaking of the time of year, it’s got to be short-term memory, you’ve got to move on and find a way to get ready for New York.

“There’s no time to sit here and feel sorry for ourselves. We still control our own fate. We’ve got to move forward and play well against New York.”

Interestingly, just last week Free Press colleague Gary Lawless posed a question to yours truly on his radio show that seemed fitting given what unfolded Sunday night. He wondered — given the Jets have already established a high since their return with 90 points this season and all the love the draft-and-develop blueprint is getting from across the league for their stockpiling of prospects — at what point we might all view this team differently.

Good question. No matter how this next couple of weeks unfolds, the trajectory of the Jets franchise will be represented by an upward arrow.

But the story is a heckuva lot more compelling if it goes beyond the regular-season finale on April 11 and into the playoffs. Anything less will just make Sunday’s loss, just like a handful of others this winter, that much more painful for the Jets and their faithful.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait