Jets fall to Islanders 4-1

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This article was published 06/10/2019 (2164 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — A patchwork Winnipeg Jets defence being held together by chewing gum and duct tape proved no match for a skilled New York Islanders club that easily exposed their many flaws Sunday night.

Only a strong goaltending performance from Laurent Brossoit saved this from being an absolute laugher. A big second period propelled the Islanders to a 4-1 victory over the Jets at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

“Not getting the win, and in that fashion, by that many goals, it always stings, regardless of how I felt I played. It’s always about the wins,” said Brossoit, who played for a second straight game over struggling No. 1 goalie Connor Hellebuyck.

Brossoit’s 29 saves included many of the highlight-reel variety, including three on short-handed breakaways and another in lunging fashion.

“Sadly, he was fantastic. When you play as well as he played, you deserve a better number (of goals against) and you should be sitting in the locker room having a good feeling right now. But, boy, he’s been like that right from the start of camp,” head coach Paul Maurice said.

Winnipeg falls to 1-2 on its season-opening four-game road trip, which ends Tuesday night in Pittsburgh. They’ve surrendered 13 goals through three games, along with an empty-netter, which is certainly not a recipe for success. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are likely salivating at the thought.

The Jets, no strangers to bad news on the blue line, got yet another big dose of it just moments before puck drop. No. 1 defenceman Josh Morrissey suffered an upper-body injury during the pre-game warm-up and couldn’t answer the bell.

“He’s our best guy back there, logs tons of minutes, plays a huge role for us. That’s not easy to lose him,” captain Blake Wheeler said.

Maurice said Morrissey tweaked something after a collision with a teammate and was held out as a precaution.

“He just got dinged up in the warm-up. We feel right now that it’s precautionary and we’ll be hopeful for (today’s practice). We’ll list him as day-to-day,” Maurice said.

That meant waiver wire pickup Carl Dahlstrom was forced to quickly get dressed, making his way to the bench for his Winnipeg debut just after the national anthems had finished.

It’s been quite a week for Dahlstrom, who was overseas in Berlin and then Prague with the Chicago Blackhawks when he got put on waivers last Monday, claimed by Winnipeg on Tuesday and then met his new teammates for the first time in New York Wednesday.

“I was just sitting in the gym. It was like five minutes until the game started. Once again, pretty hectic. But I guess it might be for the better. Obviously I would have liked to touch a few pucks and feel the puck a little bit, get the legs going. I guess you just have to play along. Now I’m in it,” Dahlstrom said.

He joined a group that included Anthony Bitetto, Tucker Poolman, Dmitry Kulikov, Neal Pionk and 18-year-old rookie Ville Heinola, who suddenly found himself on the top pair. A great story, for sure. But one that underscores just how thin this group is right now, with Dustin Byfuglien mulling retirement, Nathan Beaulieu sidelined a month with injury and Sami Niku working his way back from a groin strain, which caused him to miss most of training camp. Throw in the off-season departures of Jacob Trouba, Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot and the Jets are quite the mess on the back end right now.

Pionk (23:32), Heinola (23:01) and Dahlstrom (19:49) were top-three in ice time for the Jets Sunday.

“He’s 18 years old, for God’s sake,” Maurice said of the burden being placed on Heinola.

“Neal Pionk has been really good. Bitetto and Poolman are playing consecutively now in games and that’s not something they’ve experienced in the NHL (much). I’ve got Dmitry Kulikov playing on his offside on the (No. 1) pair and that changes things. It’s tough for those guys right now, but they’ve handled it really well. I’m not disappointed with our effort, by any means.”

Winnipeg, coming off a thrilling 5-4 come-from-behind victory Friday night in Newark and a full day away from the rink Saturday, got off to a strong, energetic start and outshot the Islanders 15-9 through a scoreless first period.

“Great opening road period. It would have been nice to pop one there, maybe get a lead, get them on their heels a little bit,” Wheeler said.

But the intermission apparently gave reigning coach-of-the-year Barry Trotz time to make some adjustments, as his team completely dominated the middle frame.

Goals by Josh Bailey (1:51 on the power play), Brock Nelson (4:38) and Anders Lee (15:55) put the Jets in yet another big hole. And this time, there would be no epic rally.

The score could have been much worse, in fact. Brossoit stopped Leo Komarov on a short-handed breakaway, then denied Nelson twice on another short-handed solo dash. Not a great look for Winnipeg’s struggling power play, which went 0-for-2.

The lone bright spot, aside from Brossoit’s play, was the first goal of the season from Patrik Laine. It came just moments after Maurice shuffled his lines late in the second period, moving Laine up with Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele and moving Nikolaj Ehlers down with Andrew Copp and Kyle Connor.

It was an interesting development, given Laine’s off-season criticism of how he rarely played on that top line for long stretches last season, aside from power-play time with the big guns.

Wheeler set up Laine’s goal at 17:06 of the period, giving the Jets a bit of life heading into the third.

But that was quickly snuffed out after Connor was denied on a solid scoring chance in the opening minute, only to have Anthony Beauvillier go the other way and bury a rebound at 1:25 to restore the three-goal lead.

Heinola was out-muscled on the play by the New York forward in front of the net.

“After the first goal, we had confidence from last game. We knew from recent memory that we can do it. We can score three easily in a period. It’s not an issue. The 4-1 goal was a back-breaker for us,” Laine said.

“We’re not blaming anybody here. We lose and win as a team. Everybody knows we have a lot of new guys in the lineup, especially on the back end, but they played good. It’s not their fault. We’ve got to give them support. Everybody on the ice has to work together, and tonight, we weren’t quite there.”

After that, the defensive-minded Islanders managed to do what the Devils couldn’t and put this one to bed, improving to 1-1-0 on the year.

“They’re just a good team, we’ve got to tip the cap. We’re a young squad right now and we gave them a bit of life with our errors, but that’s what happens with a young team. We’ve got a lot of guys getting some experience and you’ve got to learn from your mistakes,” Brossoit said.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg