Jets scoring machine sputters in 1-0 loss to smothering Blues

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/12/2018 (2465 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Go figure: A Winnipeg Jets squad that could seemingly score at will against the St. Louis Blues had their sticks freeze up on them Friday night, resulting in a rather surprising 1-0 defeat at Bell MTS Place.

After putting up 18 goals in their first three head-to-head games this year, the fourth and final meeting proved to be entirely futile. The Blues smothered the Jets with a blanket, killing off six shorthanded situations, and skated away with a hard-earned victory.

“Yeah, I’ll be damned. We’re going to throw a goose-egg up every once in a while. It’s our job, especially in a close game, to come through there (but) weren’t able to do it,” captain Blake Wheeler said of the frustrating loss, which snapped Winnipeg’s four-game winning streak and dropped its record to 17-9-2. St. Louis improved to 10-13-4 and avoided the regular-season sweep at the hands of its Central Division rivals.

Give Jake Allen plenty of credit. The Blues much-maligned No. 1 goaltender, who has struggled mightily at times this season, had perhaps his finest showing of the year in stopping all 26 pucks that came his way. He also had plenty of help on the night, especially from a defensive unit that seemed committed to making life miserable for Winnipeg’s offensive stars while paying heavy attention to play in its own end.

Receiving plenty of attention was Jets sniper Patrik Laine, who torched them for a franchise-record five goals last month in St. Louis. The Blues were in his face all night, right from the opening shift when Jordan Nolan laid him out with a big hit that was flagged for a questionable elbowing infraction.

Defenceman Robert Bortuzzo was especially engaged, drawing Laine into a four-minute roughing minor just nine seconds into Winnipeg’s first power play of the game. That’s a clever strategy for neutralizing one of the biggest threats in the sport, as Laine can’t score from the penalty box.

Bortuzzo then put on a shot-blocking clinic later in the game, stymying Laine on three different occasions during one impressive penalty kill. In fact, St. Louis skaters sacrificed their body countless times on the night, all in the name of trying to lighten Allen’s load. The Blues nearly blocked as many shots as they gave up.

“I just think we were offensively lethargic. I think that was the story,” said coach Paul Maurice. “They had 22 shots blocked, we had six. That’s a tell that you’re in their end and you have the opportunity. But as a shooter I felt we were moving, waiting for something to open up, and they stayed pretty close to home, anything we tried to put through the seam got knocked down. We were slow with our offensive game.”

The Jets were kicking off a four-game homestand after an impressive sweep of all three New York-area teams. And they no doubt hoped to get a boost with the return of injured defencemen Dustin Byfuglien (missed four games with a concussion) and Dmitry Kulikov (missed 12 games with an upper-body injury). 

While the hosts were tidy in their own end, their usually high-octane offence spurted. St. Louis struck late in the second period with a bit of a lucky one that proved to be the difference. Tyler Myers was in the box for tripping, and Colton Parayko’s point shot deflected off Jets centre Bryan Little and bounced past Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck. The goal was originally credited to Alex Steen, but changed following the game.

“That thing was going about 10 yards wide and first off I was a little bit screened but when it’s going 10 yards wide I let it go, then all of a sudden off the knee pad, off the ice and in, not much I can do about that,” said Hellebuyck.

Things got even tighter in the third period, when you figured the Jets might make a push. It took more than 13 minutes before they registered their first shot – and that’s despite having four minutes of power-play time.

The closest they came to tying was a Kulikov shot that hit the post through a maze of traffic late in the period. Mark Scheifele was also denied by Allen on a great chance from the slot with a couple minutes left in the game. 

“I guess they closed the house up pretty good. They played close to their net and obviously, they were in the lanes pretty decently. I don’t think we had a full mindset of shooting the puck right away but it was a good game,” said Byfuglien. “I thought we had some good looks. Our chances were there but that’s the way it goes some nights and we can’t get down on ourselves. We just got to forget about this one and move on to the next game.”

Winnipeg’s No. 2-ranked power play was a major disappointment, going 0-for-6 on a night when just one tally would have proved pivotal. The Blues went 1-for-2 with the man advantage. 

“They did a good job. They’ve got a good penalty-killing team, always have. It wouldn’t have been anything different than I felt about our five-on-five game. We were just a little slow with it,” said Maurice. 

Hellebuyck stopped 26 of 27 shots in taking the tough-luck loss.

“They were fighting hard, a 1-0 game. You could tell they really wanted it, it meant a lot to them and I thought we pushed really hard, too. It’s not that we didn’t deserve it, it just didn’t come our way tonight,” said Hellebuyck.

The Jets return to action Sunday afternoon when they host the Philadelphia Flyers at 2 p.m.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg