Ugly outing for Jets in 5-2 loss to sad-sack Senators

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This article was published 24/03/2022 (1262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Jets, we’re led to believe, are fighting for their playoff lives. They sure have a funny way of showing it, judging by Thursday’s ugly outing against a sad-sack Ottawa Senators squad languishing near the bottom of the NHL standings.

In the end, the team playing for nothing but pride and already well into “next year” territory, dished out a painful lesson, skating away with a 5-2 victory at Canada Life Centre over the all-too-gracious hosts who displayed no sense of urgency and made life far too easy for the visitors.

“Obviously, very frustrating,” said Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers. “This time of year, the position that we’re in, you want to get on a run. But this is not an easy league to do that in. There’s some pretty good teams. Ottawa was great tonight. There’s no way around that. I think we played into how they want to play and we didn’t play the hockey we need to play to win games.”

Winnipeg falls to 30-25-10, now five points behind Dallas for the final Western Conference playoff spot. The Jets have 17 regular-season games remaining, while the Stars have 19. Ottawa, which limped into town having lost five of their last six, improves to 23-36-5.

This one is going to leave a mark. Despite mustering very little through the first two and-a-half periods, the Jets were locked in a tight-checking, low-event 1-1 tie. But then it all came undone, as the Senators erupted for three goals in 195 seconds to blow it wide open.

Winnipeg was looking to win a third straight game for the first time in nearly three months, after victories earlier this week over Chicago and Vegas. This was also the start of a stretch in which they’ll play four straight against teams well below the playoff line.

A few more performances like this and the Jets will soon be joining them.

“I wish I had the answer,” interim coach Dave Lowry said of his club being consistently inconsistent and unable to go on a streak when they desperately need it. “We’ve played some good hockey games and lost. Tonight, we made a couple of mistakes and it cost us.”

It started a lot better than it ended, with Josh Morrissey staking Winnipeg to a 1-0 lead at 8:38 of the first period. His pass attempt banked in off Ottawa goalie Anton Forsberg and into the back of the net. It’s the 10th goal of the season for the Jets defenceman, whose previous career high was seven. Ottawa got it back later in the opening frame, as Keith Tkachuk’s baby boy, Brady, perfectly tipped an Artem Zub point shot past Connor Hellebuyck.

The Jets had a few chances to take the lead, including a partial breakaway by Paul Stastny that was stopped by Forsberg, and a terrific set-up for Evgeny Svechnikov who fired his shot high and wide, but they were few and far between.

“The biggest thing is we turned too many pucks over in the neutral zone and it didn’t allow us to get any sustained zone time,” said Lowry. “We seemed to be one and done, there were a lot of pucks that were inside we didn’t get to.”

The score remained that way until 12:25 of the third period, when Chris Tierney flipped a puck out of his own end over a pinching, leaping Logan Stanley who couldn’t bat it down. That sprung Mathieu Joseph and Tyler Ennis on a two-on-one break, and the former set up the latter for the go-ahead goal.

The roof caved in on Winnipeg at that point. Brenden Dillon took a hooking penalty — the first and only infraction by either team on the night — and Colin White cashed in seconds later, being left all alone at the side of the net to simply walk in and shovel a puck past Hellebuyck.

Put it this way: White could have been carrying a cup full of water at the same time and wouldn’t have spilled a drop, since not a single Winnipeg player came close to even laying a hand on him, let alone impede his path to the net. That goal, at 14:41, was followed by Connor Brown cutting through the Jets like a hot knife through butter and beating Hellebuyck with a wrister at 15:40.

At that point, many of the 14,175 in attendance headed for the exits.

They missed a milestone marker, of sorts, as Kyle Connor hit the 40-goal mark for the first time in his career at 17:06. He’s the first Jets player to score 40 goals since Patrik Laine scored 44 in the 2017-18 season. Lowry had pulled Hellebuyck for an extra attacker.

Any hopes of a comeback were dashed, however, when Tkachuk scored into the empty-net at 18:44.

“I think we were a little disjointed tonight, stretching when we don’t need to be,” said Connor. “We need to support the puck, being too close, leaving guys open, just not making the right reads when we need to. Just a very frustrating game for sure.”

Hellebuyck finished the night with 28 saves on 32 shots. Forsberg stopped 22 of the 24 pucks he faced.

St. Malo’s Travis Hamonic made his Ottawa debut in his home province. The veteran defenceman was traded on Sunday from Vancouver in exchange for a 3rd-round draft pick.

The Jets were without shutdown centre Adam Lowry for a third straight game, as he remains in COVID-19 protocol. The club hopes to have him back in the lineup Friday when they host Columbus for what should be an emotional night.

It will mark the first time Laine has returned to town and face the team that traded him since the January 2021 blockbuster. Forward Jack Roslovic will also have a homecoming of sorts, along with Blue Jackets assistant coach Pascal Vincent.

“Our goal is to win the next game and that’s really what we’ll focus on,” said Lowry. “We know the position that we’re in and we know the importance of every game. Our focus is to get ready for (Friday).”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg