Jets’ tailspin continues

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/01/2020 (2074 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RALEIGH – One team was gathered at centre ice playing a massive game of dodge ball in front of their hometown fans as part of the latest “Storm Surge” victory celebration. The other was dropping F-bombs in the post-game media scrums as frustration continued to boil over.

Such was the state of both Carolina and Winnipeg following Tuesday’s game at PNC arena in Raleigh, which the Hurricanes won 4-1. 

For the Jets, it’s their third straight loss — they’ve been outscored 16-4 in that span — and leaves them with just five wins in their past 17 games, now 25-21-4 overall. And not even the captain and coach appeared to be on the same page in assessing what went wrong with this latest effort. 

“There was no f—–g slow start. We played as good in the first as we did in the second as we did in the third,” was Paul Maurice’s terse reaction to a question about why his club fell behind 2-0 before the contest was even six minutes old, then got outshot 16-3 in a third period that began with them still down a pair of goals. 

“F–k man. Yeah, they were better than us in the first and third,” was Blake Wheeler’s response to a similar query.

So which was it? You’d be hard-pressed to convince anyone the Jets played very well at any point in this game, let alone in the opening 20 minutes. Martin Necas at 2:28 and Justin Williams at 5:30 did the damage to a fragile Winnipeg club that should have come out playing like their season was on the line.

Because, in a way, it is. They keep falling further down the Western Conference standings, and they’re not even looking competitive at times. 

“We’re getting scored on in the first period. If some of those bounces weren’t going against us right now, the first period wouldn’t look nearly as bad. It’s not bouncing for us for sure and playing from behind every game is pretty challenging in this league when you play against good teams,” said Wheeler. 

Patrik Laine gave the Jets some hope with his 17th goal of the season at 6:26 of the first period to cut the deficit in half, but Teuvo Teravainen got it back with just under two minutes left in the frame.

There’s no doubt Winnipeg turned it up in the second period, with several stretches of offensive zone time. But they were unable to score, let alone muster much in the way of scoring chances.

“They battled hard, they have good sticks, they play hard, they’re a good team. They’re tough to generate offence on. We had a few sustained shifts where maybe we didn’t get a shot but we need to do more of that, make teams tired playing in their d-zone with their backs towards our net,” said forward Mark Scheifele.

And then came the inexplicable third period, when you’d think the desperation level would have been cranked on high. Instead of Carolina sitting back to nurse the two-goal lead, it was the Jets who appeared to be on their heels the entire time.

And Williams, playing in just his second game of the season after opting to put off retirement, scored his second of the night midway through the third period to put this one on ice. The 38-year-old beat 23-year-old Kyle Connor to the net for the easy goal.

The Jets did show a bit of fight, quite literally, as Scheifele was the unexpected combatant in fighting Carolina defenceman Brett Pesce. It didn’t go so well for the Jets No. 1 centre, who had been tripped by Carolina goalie Petr Mrazek just prior to dropping the gloves.

“I gave Pesce a little cross check and he fell, and then Mrazek tripped me in front of the net and Pesce comes and cross checks me in the face while I’m on the ground and he asks me to go, so, you know, I thought I might as well go. That’s hockey,” said Scheifele. 

“It wasn’t frustration, it was passion. This is a beautiful hockey game, Pesce’s a great hockey player, he played hard all night and once in a while you drop the gloves and have at ‘er.”

Wheeler was spitting fire after the game, suggesting Pesce threw a few additional punches at Scheifele when he was prone.

“I like to play with guys that are willing to lay it on the line. He’s a guy I’d go to bat with any day. I don’t love their guy throwing punches on the ground. Anybody can throw punches on the ground. That will come back to him,” said Wheeler.

Winnipeg went 0-for-4 on the power play, continuing a recent slide that has seen them go 1-for-16 in recent games, including 12 straight power plays without a goal. 

“Last game we had 13 (power play) shots, 10 chances. (Tuesday) we didn’t have as many. It’s a hell of a penalty killing group that they’ve got, just between (Jordan) Staal and (Jaccob) Slavin, and they’ve got nine shorties. That’s a top-end PK unit that they put on the ice. It’s not gonna look the same way every night, but our power play’s been good,” said Maurice.

All told, the Jets put up just 17 shots on Mrazek as his team improved to 29-18-3. At the other end, Connor Hellebuyck stopped 25 of the 29 shots he faced.

“It’s tough playing against a team that’s good, they’re solid, they work hard, they have good sticks, they’re fast. They’re where they are in the standings for a reason. We battled hard, too, and we have to keep that battle attitude, that grind attitude going into (Wednesday’s) game and get a win before the break,” said Scheifele. 

Indeed, the Jets will try to salvage something out of this three-game road trip, which began with a 5-2 loss in Chicago Sunday, as they head to Columbus to play back-to-back against the red-hot and well-rested Blue Jackets.

After that, players will part for an eight-day break which includes the All-Star game and league-mandated “bye week.” 

“There’s nothing we can do about (Tuesday night). We battled hard. We just have to play good hockey (Wednesday). Battle, grind it out again, have everyone going and leave it all out on the ice before the break,” Scheifele said of the mindset that will be required to bust the slump.

“You take a shower, you wake up (Wednesday) and you bust your ass one more time and try to win. That’s it man,” said Wheeler.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg