Jets outclassed by Avalanche

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This article was published 24/02/2023 (944 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The “most important game of the year” for the Winnipeg Jets ended up being a desperate cry for help.

They were thoroughly outclassed by the Colorado Avalanche on Friday night in front of 14,157 people at Canada Life Centre, suffering an embarrassing 5-1 loss to the defending Stanley Cup champions that should be ringing plenty of alarm bells around here.

With just six days left until the trade deadline, it should also be sending a loud and clear message to general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff that this group, as currently constructed, is not ready for prime time.

“We got humbled tonight,” is how defenceman Brenden Dillon described the beatdown.

Coach Rick Bowness had raised the stakes prior to puck drop, challenging his club to be better. Instead, a fourth loss in the past five games resulted.

“We were asleep to start the game. No question. So talk to the players and get their opinion. Let them explain it to you,” said an obviously frustrated Bowness.

The Jets are now 35-23-1, but very much trending in the wrong direction at just 6-9-0 in the last 15 games with only 33 goals scored in that span. Although they still only trail the struggling Dallas Stars by a single point for the top spot in the Central Division, there’s now plenty of competition directly behind them.

The third-place Minnesota Wild are just one point back, and the Avalanche are 32-19-5 and within two points and charging hard. Falling outside the top three means competing for a Western Conference wildcard spot. To put that in perspective, the Calgary Flames are currently on the outside looking in, but only five points back of Winnipeg.

“We know we’re a good team,” said Dillon. “It just seems like on certain nights we look like a Stanley Cup contender. And then on certain nights where we don’t. And don’t even look close. And I think tonight was one of those.”

There wasn’t really anything good that happened for the home side, so let’s delve into the bad and the ugly — the very, very ugly — of the latest loss.

1) You could not have scripted a worse start.

All the talk about coming out strong after a miserable 1-3-0 road trip quickly went out the window when Nathan MacKinnon of all people was allowed to sneak in behind Winnipeg’s defence — both Dylan DeMelo and Josh Morrissey made ill-advised pinches with no forwards in sight to cover them — and get a clear-cut breakaway.

One of the game’s great players didn’t miss, and the Jets were facing a 1-0 deficit just 19 seconds into the game.

“From the first shift, you saw, obviously, they capitalized on their chances. They were quicker to pucks. They were physical,” said Dillon, who was baffled by the beginning.

“I wish I had better answers for you. There’s no excuses for how that went tonight.”

Bowness has talked all year about the need for his blue line to be more aggressive and involved in the attack, and there are times it has worked wonders. Lately, however, they seem to be picking the worst times to jump. And the very first shift of a huge game would go into that category.

2) OK, so there was one decent thing that went down. Mason Appleton tied the game less than three minutes later, and on the power play to boot. The Jets have been getting almost no secondary scoring, and their work with the man advantage has gone ice-cold lately. So this development was most welcome, with Appleton tipping a Nate Schmidt shot for his second of the year.

Unfortunately for the Jets, it was all downhill from here.

“They showed us what the benchmark is, what a team that’s won and knows the importance of these games and how to rise to the occasion,” said Dillon. “We gotta take the lesson from that.”

3) It took all of 80 seconds for Colorado to regain the lead, this time for good. Once again, a terrible defensive pinch, this time by Neal Pionk, was to blame.

Dillon was left all by himself to defend a two-on-one, with Mikko Rantanen using linemate J.T. Compher as a decoy and ripping a shot past Connor Hellebuyck.

Less than three minutes later, Compher tipped a Rantanen shot to make it 3-1.

Then things really turned sour. As Hellebuyck turned aside a routine shot a few minutes later — just his second save of the game at that point — the restless home crowd gave him the proverbial Bronx cheer.

There’s a lot of blame to go around, but pinning any of this on your former Vezina Trophy winner, the guy responsible for a 50-save heist just four nights earlier in Madison Square Garden, is pure madness.

“I wasn’t worried about the goaltending. Did you see the shots they had? They had all day to shoot. What do you want a goalie to do there? Nothing,” said Bowness.

We wondered if Hellebuyck might get the mercy pull a few minutes later when Bowen Byram beat him with a wrister to quickly turn this into a rout, but Hellebuyck remained in the net. Matt Nieto added to Winnipeg’s misery midway through the second when he scored on a wicked shot, and the rout was truly on at this point.

Hellebuyck was given the rest of the night off after 40 minutes, stopping 21 of the 26 shots he faced. David Rittich got mop-up duty in the third period and turned aside all 10 pucks that came his way.

“We can’t hang the best goalie in the league out to dry,” said Appleton.

4) Bowness has been sending plenty of messages lately, including some stinging criticism of his team’s play through the media.

He tried a few more tricks on Friday night.

First, he demoted Nikolaj Ehlers to the fourth line for a spell, clearly unhappy with the winger’s recent play. That would include a less-than-stellar play on Colorado’s fourth goal.

Ehlers was eventually bumped back up, but then it was Pierre-Luc Dubois’ turn to go down for some shifts with the likes of Saku Maenalanen and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby. (Maenanalen was promoted in Ehlers’ spot to skate with Dubois and Blake Wheeler, and then Kevin Stenlund was swapped with Dubois).

Bowness also shook up his defence pairs during the game, but it was pretty much window-dressing at this point. The damage had already been done.

“It’s unacceptable,” Appleton said of his team’s play. “We rebounded, scored a goal, tied it up, and then from there, we were chasing the game once they scored their second goal. You want to give credit to them, they’re a really good hockey team, but we didn’t help ourselves tonight. We’re a really good hockey team when we want to be. We were not that tonight.”

5) One thing Winnipeg had going for it coming into this game was its strong play against the Central Division (14-4-0). It’s a big part of the reason they are still in the hunt for first, with so many “four point” games ending in their favour.

That also included a pair of wins earlier this year against the Avalanche (4-3 in Denver on Oct. 19, and 5-0 on home ice on Nov. 29).

But now even that isn’t going their way.

To be fair, Colorado came in red-hot and are now 12-2-2 in their last 16 games. This, despite missing Gabriel Landeskog for the entire season (he’s recently resumed skating after knee surgery) and reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar, who is battling his second concussion in as many weeks.

“Maybe we give their best guys a little too much credit, a little too much space out there,” said Appleton. “We got to find a way to smother those guys because with time and space, the best players in the world are deadly.”

6) It doesn’t get any easier for Winnipeg. The New York Islanders come to town on Sunday afternoon, having just downed the Jets 2-1 on Wednesday in the Big Apple. And then the Los Angeles Kings end the homestand on Tuesday.

“Every once in a while this game’s going to test your character and it’s going to test your pride,” said Bowness. “And that game on Sunday will be an example. We just got embarrassed. We’ll see how we respond.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg