Playoff payoff: A timeline of the Jets’ post-season matchups

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2015 (3928 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Stanley Cup playoffs return to Winnipeg this spring, a long absence that has clearly made the heart grow fonder.

Just observe the mayhem after the berth was clinched on Thursday night — the combination of a Jets’ white-knuckle shootout loss of 1-0 in Colorado combined about five minutes later with a favourable result in Calgary, a 3-1 Flames win that extinguished the defending Cup champion Los Angeles Kings.

Absences will do that. Hockey fans in particular always seem to long for what they don’t have.

In Winnipeg, fans of the Jets endured 15 dark years for games of any kind after their franchise was moved to Phoenix in 1996.

The NHL approved a transfer of the Atlanta Thrashers to the Manitoba capital in 2011, but that came with a four-year drought of playoff action.

Three more springs were tacked onto that skid while the new proprietors of the franchise re-tooled and re-engineered the organization.

Game 82 of the season matters not to the Jets today, other than being a pressure-free opportunity for the team’s fans to salute the consistency and preparation that has earned 97 points in 81 games in the NHL’s toughest division.

What then?

Well, it’s into the fire of the post-season games sometime next week.

Winnipeg’s history is hardly glorious in this category. Even one of the city’s outstanding traditions, the playoff whiteout that began in 1987, has been spectacularly ineffective when it comes to Stanley Cup tournament results, as Winnipeg-based teams have lost six series in a row and 11 out of 13 overall.

Nonetheless, it’s been a while and the pure enjoyment of its return is a priority. Plus, keeping in mind how most folks felt in 2011, the present is always just a little sweeter when you know the history.

 

1982

St. Louis defeated Winnipeg 3-1 in the first round.

 

Getting into the playoffs as the second team (80 points, 80 games) in the Norris Division — after a significant re-alignment — was a huge step for the Jets. They had come into the league in 1979, and in the Smythe Division for two years had 51 points and then an awful 32, a total that paved the way to No. 1 pick Dale Hawerchuk. Hawerchuk led the Jets in scoring in the four playoff games in 1982, 1-7-8 as the Jets won Game 2 at home, but were otherwise beat down in St. Louis and goalie Mike Liut, 6-3 and 8-2 in Games 3 and 4.

 

1983

Edmonton swept Winnipeg 3-0 in the first round.

 

Scores of 6-3, 4-3 and 4-3, with only Game 3 in Winnipeg, were the start of Edmonton’s NHL domination over the Jets. The Jets qualified with just 74 points, back in the Smythe because Colorado dropped out of the NHL and Smythe and a rebalance was needed. But not even the presence of legendary defenceman Serge Savard could help. Wayne Gretzky won the scoring title that year with 196 points. The Oilers were swept in the Cup final by the Islanders.

 

1984

Edmonton swept Winnipeg 3-0 in the first round.

 

Repeat. Edmonton won 9-2, 5-4 and 4-1, with Game 2 decided in overtime. It was kind of the same old story, the Jets were a sad fourth in the Smythe and the Oilers had improved from 106 to 119 regular-season points. Gretzky won the scoring title with 205 points that season, by 79 points over teammate Paul Coffey. The Oilers powered to their first Cup this spring.

 

1985

Winnipeg defeated Calgary 3-1 in the first round.

Edmonton swept Winnipeg 4-0 in the second round.

 

The Jets posted their first-ever playoff series victory, dispatching the Flames. A major edge was finishing the season in second spot with 96 points and gaining home-ice advantage on the Flames, who had 94. The Jets won the first two games at home but in Game 3 in Calgary, the infamous Jamie Macoun put Hawerchuk out of the playoffs with a vicious cross-check that went unpenalized. One night later, the Jets rebounded from the 4-0 loss to send the Flames to the golf course. In the division final series, same as usual, a sweep by the Oilers. Without their best player, Winnipeg was no match for the eventual Cup champs, who got game-winners in the series from Coffey, Coffey, Gretzky and Jari Kurri. Ouch.

 

1986

Calgary swept Winnipeg 3-0 in the first round.

 

After a miserable season, barely qualifying for the playoffs with 59 points (Vancouver also had 59, the Kings had 54), the Jets were no match for the consistent Flames, losing 5-1, 6-4 and 4-3 in OT. The Jets used four goalies in the series, Marc Behrend, Brian Hayward, junior callup Daniel Berthiaume and Dan Bouchard.

 

1987

Winnipeg defeated Calgary 4-2 in the first round.

Edmonton swept Winnipeg 4-0 in the second round.

 

Behind the goaltending of Berthiaume, the Jets rode the Flames out of the first round again, this time 88-95 underdogs in the Smythe’s 2-3 matchup. The games were tight, apart from the 6-1 clincher in Winnipeg, the first series where the white-out took full effect at the old Winnipeg Arena. Alas, the fun didn’t last long as the Oilers swept the Jets for a fourth straight time, this time in the second round. Hawerchuk led the Jets in that spring’s playoffs with 13 points in 10 games, at least exacting a little revenge on the Flames for the happenings of two years earlier.

 

1988

Edmonton defeated Winnipeg 4-1 in the first round.

Part of the legend of Randy Gilhen is supported in this spring’s playoffs. He fired the NHL franchise’s first-ever playoff game-winning goal against the Oilers. The Jets were once again outmatched against the Oilers, but this spring managed to win one game, 6-4 at home in Game 3. And that was something, if you can believe it.

 

1990

Edmonton defeated Winnipeg 4-3 in the first round.

 

After an awful season out of the 1989 playoffs, one that cost both Dan Maloney and Rick Bowness their jobs, Bob Murdoch took over the 1989-90 Jets and pushed the Jets back to respectability with 85 points, easily third in the Smythe. They drew the second-place Oilers, again, but this time with a more balanced team and less reliance on their stars — remember, this was the season that disillusioned Hawerchuk so much he asked to be traded — the Jets seemed less afraid of the Oilers. They roared to a 3-1 series lead on Dave Ellett’s double-overtime winner on Bill Ranford at the arena, probably to this day the most electric moment in the city’s NHL playoff history. But the Oilers rallied once the Jets got their attention, winning the next three 4-3, 4-3 and 4-1, thanks largely to winger Craig Simpson taking up residence in the Winnipeg crease with impunity, an element that became a major distraction for the underdogs. There were also harsh words between the organizations because the Oilers had felt very disrespected by mid-series comments by Jets assistant coach Alpo Suhonen, who was anything but a mainstream thinker and thought the Oilers arrogant. Edmonton wasn’t tested this severely in the rest of the playoffs, winning another Cup.

 

1992

Vancouver defeated Winnipeg 4-3 in the first round.

 

The Jets, again inconsistent, finished last in the Smythe and missed the playoffs in 1991, this time costing Murdoch his job. When John Paddock took over for 1991-92, the team fought its way back in with 81 points. The fourth-place standing drew the first-place Vancouver Canucks. Again in this one, the Jets, featuring Eddie Olczyk and Phil Housley, and rookie Keith Tkachuk for the playoffs, started fast, splitting in Vancouver and then winning Games 3 and 4 at home, 4-2 and 3-1 behind the goaltending of Rick Tabaracci. But again, the Jets couldn’t get over the hump and when the powerful Canucks woke up in this series, they couldn’t be controlled. Vancouver won the final three games 8-2, 8-3 and 5-0 to complete the comeback.

 

1993

Vancouver defeated Winnipeg 4-2 in the first round.

 

With 87 points and a fourth-place standing after a dreadful start to the season, the Jets again qualified and again drew the first-place Canucks. Winnipeg had a new weapon for this one, Teemu Selanne, a rookie unlike any other — ever — in the NHL. The Jets dropped the first two games in Vancouver, 4-2 and 3-2 but rallied to win Game 3 at home on a hat-trick goal by Selanne, 5-4. A 3-1, empty-net-goal loss at home in Game 4 put the Jets behind the eight-ball, but they lived to play another day when they rallied from down 3-1 in Vancouver to win Game 5 on Selanne’s overtime goal. Winnipeg had three leads on home ice in Game 6 but couldn’t close the deal, and Greg Adams scored a dubious goal in overtime to end the game 4-3, and the series. Adams’ goal, shoving Jets goalie Bob Essensa and the puck into the net, wouldn’t count today. It caused the NHL to rewrite its rule on goaltender contact and covered pucks.

 

1996

Detroit defeated Winnipeg 4-2 in the first round.

 

Two more springs without playoffs (now having switched to the Central Division) led to the lame-duck season of 1995-96, a largely painful affair until the very end. Overall attendance was low but with nostalgia clearly in play, perked up near the end of the season when the Jets made it into the playoffs with a win in their second-last game over L.A. Had Winnipeg not laid an egg in Anaheim in its final game, it would have jumped up and played the Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs. Instead, as the eighth seed, the Jets drew the mighty Detroit Red Wings. It didn’t go well out of the gate, dropping games in Detroit 4-1 and 4-0. At home, the Jets responded by winning 4-1 but their momentum was short-lived as Detroit took Game 4 easily, 6-1. Game 5 of the series provided good and bad news. The Jets won the contest on the remarkable goaltending of Nik Khabibulin, 3-1, but lost captain Kris King to a season-ending injury when he was knee-checked by Detroit’s Sergei Fedorov, who went unpunished when the NHL turned a blind eye. That brought the series back to the historic final game in Winnipeg, April, 28, 1996, and the Jets, though they tried their best, were just no match for the powerful Wings, losing 4-1. No Jets player had more than three points in the six-game series.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca