Disappointment and frustration

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This article was published 06/04/2022 (1250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Stick a fork in the Winnipeg Jets, folks.

The odds of making a miraculous, late-season playoff run basically went from slim to none on Wednesday night as they were dumped 3-1 by the lowly Detroit Red Wings in front of 13,484 angry, disappointed fans at Canada Life Centre. It was a game they simply couldn’t afford to lose, yet as has all-too-often been the case this season, they found a way.

“To be honest I don’t think one word has been said since the game ended in the locker room,” said defenceman and alternate captain Josh Morrissey. “Not one word.”

Consider this: Detroit, long eliminated from postseason consideration and very much building for the future, arrived in the city in the wee hours of the night after playing a home game on Tuesday against Boston. Winnipeg was comfortably tucked in their beds, well-rested having not played since last Saturday. The Red Wings were also without their second-leading scorer in Tyler Bertuzzi, the NHL’s lone unvaccinated player who can’t cross into Canada as a result. And the Jets were welcoming back leading scorer Kyle Connor and top offensive defenceman Nate Schmidt into their lineup.

Add it all up and what could go wrong? Pretty much anything and everything, it turns out.

“I think the reason for the silence is the frustration. Obviously we can’t afford to lose games right now. And that’s a game we shouldn’t lose,” said Morrissey. “Just with their schedule and our desperation, they’re playing on a back to back. It’s frustrating. I think every guy knows that in the room. So that’s the emotion.”

Winnipeg has now dropped three straight games, all in regulation, at the worst possible time.

“We needed to come out with a win. That’s the bottom line — we need two points at this time of the year. It’s tough,” said Connor of the latest in a growing list of setbacks.

The Jets are 33-28-10 and will wake up Thursday either seven or eight points out of the final Western Conference wildcard spot — depending on the late-night Vegas versus Vancouver result — with just 11 regular-season games left. Two of those are against the league’s best team, the Colorado Avalanche, including a Friday night date to close out this current homestand.

“I would say extreme disappointment. And obviously with nothing being said, you can tell how the players feel,” said interim coach Dave Lowry. “As a coach you’d like it to be loud, that you’ve won a hockey game. I understand where the players are. I understand the disappointment. That just shows that they care. And that’s a big thing.”

The well-rested Jets carried the play early, although they weren’t rewarded for it. Morrissey hit the post on a power play, Paul Stastny was robbed by Detroit’s backup netminder Thomas Greiss and captain Blake Wheeler was flying in the first period, creating several chances for himself and his linemates.

But a turning point came late in the opening frame, with the Jets on a second man advantage and looking to strike. For the third straight game, Winnipeg surrendered a shorthanded goal, with veteran Sam Gagner converting a Dylan Larkin feed at 18:40. Pierre-Luc Dubois looked like he had a chance to tie up Gagner but failed to do so. You could feel the weary visitors get an injection of life at that point, despite being outshot 13-5 in the opening 20 minutes.

“That gave them some energy and that gave them some life. I thought for the most part, we were in control of the first period and we gave them reasons to stick around,” said Lowry.

Detroit carried the momentum into the middle frame, hitting a pair of posts of their own. However, Winnipeg evened it up at 6:01 when Mark Scheifele perfectly deflected a Schmidt point shot past Greiss for his 27th of the year. Nikolaj Ehlers had made a fine play along the boards to get the puck back to Schmidt.

The Jets appeared to grab the lead a few minutes later when Blake Wheeler had a near carbon-copy deflection off a Dylan DeMelo shot, but the goal was quickly wiped out when replays showed Wheeler was obviously offside. Detroit successfully challenged, and that seemed to deflate the home team as they spent large stretches of time hemmed in their own zone. Winnipeg was outshot 17-9 in the second.

With the game up for grabs in the final frame, it was the team playing for the second time in 24 hours that took over. And a common problem reared its ugly head once again for the Jets, as they were unable to box out of a flurry of Red Wings forwards that crashed the crease. Michael Rasmussen managed to swat a loose puck past Hellebuyck at 9:11 to put Detroit up 2-1.

“I think that’s where you have to find a way defensively to box players out and get their sticks tied up,” said Morrissey.

“It’s different this year with the cross checking changes a little bit on the box outs. On that particular play, it kind of bounced off a bunch of stuff and goes right to their stick. But at the same time you see that they had two, maybe three players right at the front of the net. It’s a good place to score goals. I think defensively that’s an area obviously we have to get better at. I think it’s something that when we’ve played well here, it’s been a focus of ours. It kind of goes hand in hand with our success a lot of nights. That’s definitely an area that we have to be better. We have to improve in a lot of areas and that’s one of them.”

Winnipeg had a late chance when the Red Wings were called for too many men on the ice, near the tail end of a four-minute high-sticking minor taken by Jets forward Zach Sanford. But they couldn’t cash in on what was a 57-second six-on-four — Hellebuyck was pulled for an extra attacker — and then then ensuing six-on-five advantage.

“We had a couple chances, a couple shots around the net. Their goalie made some big saves. Couldn’t get one in. Couple scramble plays around the net. If one of those goes in it’s a different story,” said Morrissey.

Gagner sealed the deal with an empty-netter at 19:23.

Winnipeg went 0-for-3 on the power play, and are now just 1-for-15 in the last five games. Both Hellebuyck and Greiss finished with 32 saves each.

“It’s tough. If you go through the course of a year, I think you’re going to win more games playing that way,” said Connor. “Creating chances. I think they get a couple of lucky breaks coming the other way. Unfortunately, they finished on that one (in the third) tonight. No matter what it is — we had good zone time, a lot chances — it’s still frustrating.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg