Jets confident they can handle the moment

The Winnipeg Jets insist they are not seeing ghosts.

When the topic of “here they go again” was raised on Monday during a media availability inside the Matt Frost media centre, Jets head coach Scott Arniel showed a hint of frustration with the question before catching himself.

The ghosts of playoff past might be a subject the Jets’ fan base can’t help but think about, but Arniel had no interest in going down that road after his team dropped the past two games in this Central Division battle with the St. Louis Blues.

“I don’t give a — never mind,” said Arniel. “This is the Western Conference. Take a look at what’s going on around the league. Everyone is tied 2-2. How we got here? As a head coach, I’m not happy about how we got here, but we’re here.

“Game 5, we have to be the best team on the ice. I don’t care what’s happened in the past. One thing that this group has done a fantastic job all year long is we have to move on to the next game.”

There is no other choice that leads to success for the Jets, who won a pair of tight games to build a 2-0 series lead and were blown out in consecutive games to find themselves back to even at 2-2.

This series won’t be decided by the total number of goals, but for a team that has won the William Jennings Trophy in consecutive seasons for allowing the least number of goals over 82 games, giving up 12 during the past two is clearly not a recipe for sustained success.

The Jets had a mostly dominant first period on Sunday, but the inability to push the lead to 2-0 proved costly when the Blues scored with 22.7 seconds remaining in the frame.

Things turned in the second period and the Blues scored another late goal with 1:05 that proved to be a back-breaker.

Where does that leave the Jets?

On home ice in a best-of-three series needing to win two more games to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs against either the Colorado Avalanche or Dallas Stars.

All season long the Jets have talked about how they would be judged by what transpires in Game 83 and beyond. And getting bounced for a third consecutive spring isn’t an option the Jets want to think about.

This is why they spent the off-season focusing on getting that five-to-10 per cent better and bringing those results into the regular season, where the Jets reached new heights, many of them individually and collectively as a group by finishing first overall among the 32 teams.

Steps were taken, lessons were put into practice. Yet after all of the positives from the past 12 months, the Jets once again stand nose to nose with the playoff dragon they’re trying to slay.

Since getting bounced by the Blues in the first round in 2019, the Jets have managed to come up with only one win following a loss in the post-season.

That came in Game 2 of the 2020 bubble playoffs, where the Jets defeated the Flames in that contest before dropping the next two to lose in four in the best-of-five play-in series.

Since that time, they were swept by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round in 2021 after sweeping the Edmonton Oilers.

In 2022, they won the series opener against the Vegas Golden Knights before getting eliminated in five games.

Last spring, the Jets once again won the series opener against the Colorado Avalanche before losing four in a row to be sent home early.

But Arniel and the players are right when they say it’s a new season. The Jets spent much of this one showing they were better prepared to handle things when times get tough. However, they’ve reached the point where action is required.

“The way we’re approaching this game is, we want to get back to our style, our structure, our compete, our speed and the results will take care of itself,” said Jets captain Adam Lowry. “Realistically, you want to win the series, you probably want to win this one. But we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, in terms of thinking that you lose this one the series is over.

“It’s two good teams going at it. We’re approaching this as a very important game for us. We don’t want to make the situation bigger than it is. It’s a swing game in the series. We want to put ourselves in the best possible position to move on, and that starts with a good start, us playing on our toes, us playing fast and getting to our forecheck.”

And all signs point to forward Gabe Vilardi returning to the lineup, and that should provide a lift for a group that is looking for some additional secondary scoring and one that needs to get the power play going.

Arniel was asked if Vilardi could handle top line minutes if he entered the lineup for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury against the Buffalo Sabres on Mar. 23.

“If he’s prepared and cleared to go, then it’s all-in,” said Arniel.

This isn’t to suggest that Vilardi entering the lineup will immediately fix everything that has been ailing the Jets during the past two games, but someone with his hands around the net and skillset is bound to help.

No matter who Vilardi is playing with — and you can expect him to see time with Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor — the Jets are looking for more from the middle-six forward group, as they’ve been limited to one empty-net goal from Lowry through four games.

Bumping Morgan Barron up onto that line led to some scoring chances and zone time, but the Jets can’t keep leaning on the fourth line to deliver the bulk of the secondary scoring. They’ve already got two goals in the series — one from David Gustafsson and another from Jaret Anderson-Dolan, who spent the bulk of the season in the American Hockey League with the Manitoba Moose.

This isn’t about one player saving the day, though — the Jets thrive when the collective group is going.

“We’re ready to play,” said Jets defenceman Neal Pionk. “Wish it was Wednesday today, but we’ll take a couple days off here. We’ve gone through this before. We went through a little stretch there in November and early December and bounced back from it, so we’re ready to go.”

The Jets sound prepared to handle the moment. Delivering in it is the next step toward changing the narrative, even if the Jets are doing their best to block out the outside noise.

“The biggest thing is we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, in terms of how we play,” said Lowry. “When we play a certain way, we’ve had success against the Blues, and when we get away from that, when we get out of our structure, we stop defending first, we make it easier to get to the net-front, and then you see games like that.

“All year long the strength of our team has been our team defence, our five-on-five play. It’s important when we look at the game (Sunday) and review the last couple of games we see the areas where we can certainly be a lot better in. And go out and execute. You have the game plan, now it’s important to go and put it into practice.”

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

X and Bluesky: @WiebesWorld