Jets peak early in 4-1 loss to Dallas

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/10/2022 (1057 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DALLAS — It’s usually never a good sign when you team peaks just 208 seconds into the game, but such was the case for the Winnipeg Jets on Monday, where a fast start gave way to a rough finish in an eventual 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.

Mark Scheifele gave the visitors an early lead when he scored his third of the young season following a pretty passing play with linemates Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers. Unfortunately for the visitors, that would be all the offence they could muster.

Tyler Seguin tied it before the opening period was over, Finnish skaters Jani Hakanpaa and Joel Kiviranta scored over a 1:50 span late in the second period to break it open, and fellow countryman Miro Heiskanen finished it off in the third on the power play.

“First period I thought it was pretty even. In the second period they started playing with more speed, more transition. We didn’t have an answer for it,” said alternate captain Adam Lowry.

Winnipeg falls to 1-1-0, while Dallas improves to 3-0-0.

“They did a really good job of slowing us down through the neutral zone, took away our forecheck. We weren’t really a five-man forecheck like we had been in the first,” said associate coach Scott Arniel, who once again filled in for head coach Rick Bowness as he remains in Winnipeg battling COVID-19.

“We got back on our heels and they were coming with speed at us more in the second and third than we were going after them.”

Here’s some observations from our perch high above American Airlines Center, where 17,875 fans went home happy:

1) We wondered before the year began if the Jets had enough depth scoring. Now, two games in, we’ll ask again: do the Jets have enough depth scoring? Through six periods, the second line (Pierre-Luc Dubois, Blake Wheeler, Cole Perfetti) and third line (Lowry, Mason Appleton, Morgan Barron) have yet to light the lamp. The fourth line (Sam Gagner, David Gustafsson, Saku Maenalanen) has one goal (the third-period winner in last Friday’s 4-1 win over the New York Rangers). Other than that, the No. 1 and the power play (aka the top line plus Dubois) have accounted for the rest. One of the problems with loading up Scheifele, Ehlers and Connor is it leaves you a bit thin through the rest of your lines. And Winnipeg, which generated just 25 shots against Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger, looked really thin in this one.

“Traffic, and the shots he did see, we didn’t have enough guys around to make it difficult in case there was a rebound,” said Lowry.

2) The power play just couldn’t get going in this one. First, the Jets came up empty on two second-period attempts when the score was still 1-1. A goal or two could have made the difference. Then, once they fell behind 4-1, they had three chances (including a four-minute power play when Kiviranta butt-ended Neal Pionk in the face and drew blood). The puck movement wasn’t very crisp, especially when they coughed up a shorthanded breakaway chance for Roope Hintz that Connor Hellebuyck turned aside.

“Special teams, obviously, were part of the story for sure. We couldn’t get one on the power play and they were able to,” said defenceman Josh Morrissey. “In these tight Central Division games, basically a 1-1 game for a lot of that first half at least, that’s where special teams has to be the difference. For us on the power play, we weren’t able to execute. We had some good looks later on in the game, but in that second period, when it could have gone either way, we could have got one but we weren’t able to put one in.”

3) It’s no secret the Central Division is a meat grinder. Not only do you have the Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche staring down from above, but Minnesota, St. Louis, Nashville and Dallas are no pushovers, either. If Winnipeg is to make the playoffs, they have to finish ahead of at least one of those teams, and possibly two or even three depending on what happens in the Pacific Division. So dropping the first “four-point game” is hardly ideal. All told, the Jets play 26 games against their Central rivals this year.

“That was a real grit game,” said Arniel. “They came out and they banged us, they blocked some shots, they won some wall battles, probably a little bit more of that that we need to do. You’re not going to play a soft, cute game in our division. It’s going to be, divisional opponents, you’re going to have to play them hard. They won more battles than we did.”

4) The Jets are no longer the big, strong team they were just a few years ago, thanks largely to the departure of several big-bodied blue-liners such as Dustin Byfuglien, Jacob Trouba, Ben Chiarot and Tyler Myers. And there are games like Monday’s where you wonder if they have enough muscle to hang with the heavyweights. Case in point: Perfetti got bodied early and often, continuing a troubling trend that began in the pre-season. He’s already taken a number of hellacious hits, some of the questionable variety, and you hope his slight frame will hold up considering he dealt with shoulder and back injuries last year. Gustafsson also got deposited in the Dallas bench by Luke Glendening, who gave him an extra shove for good measure just to ensure he stayed down.

5) This was not a great night for Logan Stanley. The six-foot-seven defenceman, who seemingly beat out Ville Heinola (now with the Manitoba Moose) and Dylan Samberg (a healthy scratch for a second straight game) for the final blue-line spot, took a pair of penalties: the first, when he was going to lose a foot race to a loose puck, the second an undisciplined slash (with his team already down a man with Dubois in the box) that led to Heiskanen’s insurance marker. Stanley also provided a screen of Hellebuyck on Hakanpaa’s game-winning goal.

6) For several years, Scheifele and Seguin have had a running bit where they battle after the pre-game skate to see who will leave the ice surface last. A game of rock, paper scissors has been used in the past, but there were no such shenanigans in this one, with Seguin playing the role of gracious host and conceding victory to Scheifele. Of course, he ultimately got the win that really mattered.

Up next: Winnipeg travels to Denver to face the Avalanche on Wednesday, then close out the road trip on Thursday in Las Vegas.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg