Road kill

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/04/2019 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. PAUL — A lengthy players-only closed-door team meeting after Game 80. That’s certainly not the way they drew it up.

Then again, the Winnipeg Jets keep finding new ways to lower expectations, looking absolutely nothing like a Stanley Cup contender and every bit like a pretender that is quickly going to be one and done when the playoffs begin next week.

How else to explain Tuesday night’s pathetic performance in St. Paul, in which the Jets were lacking in every category that counts as they fell 5-1 to the Minnesota Wild, then retreated to the dressing room to privately vent their frustrations?

Only captain Blake Wheeler and coach Paul Maurice emerged to speak when the impromptu team hot stove session finally broke up after 23 minutes after the final buzzer. (NHL rules state the dressing room is supposed to be open within five minutes of a game ending).

“Things haven’t been bouncing easy for us, nothing’s been easy for us. Those are all excuses. Our team needs to show a little bit of resiliency, a little bit of maturity,” Wheeler said in his brief session with the media at Xcel Energy Center.

“We’ve run into some pretty good competition here down the stretch. We want to be playing our best hockey this time of year, and we’re not quite there yet. So when it comes down to that, you want to get a team on the same page, you want to get every guy pulling on the rope in the same direction. Sometimes the best therapy for that is having a conversation about it.”

In a season filled with a surprisingly-high number of stinkers, this one was as putrid as they come. Any progress made by Monday’s overtime win in Chicago was quickly erased by an inexplicable lack of effort and execution that probably had many observers holding their noses.

“We’re not very proud of our game right now and it’s the style of game that we’re playing. So, they recognize that clearly and thought it was a good time to chat about it,” Maurice said of the team meeting.

Is he concerned that this sort of thing is happening after Game 80?

“It would be far (more) of a concern if after Game 80, you weren’t concerned,” said Maurice.

It was a costly loss on a number of fronts. First, the Jets fall back into a tie with Nashville for top spot in the Central Division, after the Predators won in Buffalo. Each team has two games remaining. St. Louis is two points back with a game in hand, which they’ll play Wednesday night in Chicago.

Forget a division title and home-ice advantage, the Jets are in serious danger of tumbling down to third place and starting the post-season on the road. Not that it really matters, because if the team plays like they have lately – now 2-5-0 in the past seven – they’re going to quickly be eliminated regardless of where they finish and who they play.

Secondly, energy winger Brandon Tanev suffered a hand injury after being slashed by Eric Staal in the first period. He didn’t return to the game, and an extended absence would leave a huge hole in the lineup. Tanev leads the team in hits by a country mile, has put up a career-high 14 goals, buzzes all over the ice and essentially brings the “give a crap” factor that seemed to be sorely missing Tuesday.

There was no passion or pushback, as the Jets seemed content to just go through the motions and get out of town, empty-handed. Remarkably, Winnipeg lost all five meetings with Minnesota in regular this season, despite the fact the Wild are going to finish well behind them in the standings and were eliminated from playoff contention about an hour after the game ended when Colorado downed Edmonton.

Goalie Eric Comrie took it on the chin in this one, playing his first NHL game of the season in order to give workhorse Connor Hellebuyck a rest. Comrie, the Manitoba Moose starter, gave up three goals on just nine shots in the opening frame.

The first of two straight by Zach Parise was a bizarre deflected puck that Comrie lost track of and sailed in over his head. The second was on a nice two-on-one, while the third of the frame, by Victor Rask, caught him cheating off his post and was one he needs to stop. Same for the fifth goal, late in the third period, which trickled right between his legs.

All told, Comrie was beaten five times on just 28 shots.

Sure, he looked overmatched. But it’s not like the Jets mustered much of an offensive attack to try and bail him out. Jacob Trouba scored the only goal of the game, late in the second period when it was already a 4-0 deficit. His pass attempt to Wheeler in front of the Minnesota net, while shorthanded, banked in off Devan Dubnyk.

Maurice tried to spark his team by mixing up the lines a bit, moving Bryan Little up with Kevin Hayes and Patrik Laine, and Nikolaj Ehlers down with Tanev and Adam Lowry. But those plans fell apart when Tanev got hurt early in the game, as the remaining 11 forwards were mixed-and-matched in various ways.

It didn’t work.

Nor did the power play, which went 0-for-2 on the night. A sequence on a second period man-advantage may have perfectly summed up the night. Mark Scheifele was given a perfect pass from Wheeler in the slot, only to rip his shot right off the legs of teammate Kyle Connor. Seconds later, Wheeler tried to throw the puck back to Trouba on the point, only to miss him badly and sent it all the way back into their own end.

The road trip continues Thursday night against Colorado Avalanche, and then curtain comes down on the regular-season Saturday night in Glendale against the Arizona Coyotes.

“Regardless of what happens in the next two games, we’re going to the playoffs. We’ve been sitting on that for a little bit now. We’ve got to get back to work tomorrow, get a little bit of bounce-back in our step,” said Wheeler.

“Regardless of what happens in these last two games, we’ve got to have a game we can identify when we go into the playoffs. It was a little bit topsy-turvy there at times (Tuesday). So get a little bit of structure back, get a little bit of excitement and enthusiasm into our room, hopefully we can string a couple together and get some confidence.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg